MAY 18 • 2023 | 97
THE FOCUS THIS WEEK IS
THREE TALENTED JEWISH
WOMEN
The week of May 18-24
is a rare week: It doesn’t
have a movie or series
premiere with a strong
Jewish connection. This
gives me the chance to
focus on three women who,
coincidentally, have similar
Jewish family backgrounds.
All three have recent
projects that I haven’t
mentioned before.
If you use Roku to stream
channels, as I do, you know
that Roku is offering an
ever-increasing number of
exclusive-to-Roku series. I
think their best “original”
to-date is Slip. This seven-
episode series stars Zoe
Lister-Jones, 40. She also
created the series, wrote
it and directed every
episode. The series began
streaming in its entirety on
April 21.
As the series begins,
Mae (Lister-Jones) is an
exhibit curator for a major
museum. She’s long been
married to a struggling
novelist. He’s a nice guy,
but Mae is tired of being
the breadwinner and
resents his decreasing
interest in physical intimacy.
Without intending to, she
“hooks-up,” once, with a
smart, very good-looking
guy, and the next morning
— she finds herself in a
parallel universe in which
she is married to this guy!
Subsequent episodes
show Mae “slipping” out of
one life into another — a
lesbian mother, a rich man’s
wife, etc. She wants to get
back to her husband but
doesn’t know how.
Sounds odd, I know. But
this is serious, insightful
stuff, with some comedic
moments here and there.
While Mae isn’t identified
as Jewish, Lister-Jones
gets in a few lines that are
Jewish-related.
Most people know Lister-
Jones, if they know her at
all, from her role on the
CBS series Life in Pieces.
But I know Lister-Jones
as someone who often
flies her Jewish flag —
which makes sense — her
mother, video artist Ardele
Lister, was the head of her
Conservative synagogue;
her family kept kosher;
and her father, Bill Jones,
a prominent photographer,
converted to Judaism.
In Arranged (2007), a
charming indie film, Lister-
Jones played an Orthodox
public-school teacher who
finds her perfect Orthodox
husband with the help of
her Muslim schoolteacher
friend.
Lister-Jones made her
directorial debut with Band
Aid (2017), a quite good
dramedy film that she also
co-starred in and wrote.
It’s about a Jewish married
couple who find a novel
way to stop arguing and
repair their marriage.
Sadly, Lister-Jones and
her filmmaker husband,
Daryl Wein, 38, split up in
2021 after nine years of
marriage.
Working Moms, a
dramedy, ran on CBC from
2017-2023. All 85 episodes
are now streaming on
Netflix. It stars Catherine
Reitman, 42, as Kate
Foster, a talented ad
executive who is also a
working mom. The show
focuses on Kate and three
of her friends, who are also
working moms.
Reitman created the
series, often wrote
episodes and sometimes
directed her show.
Philip Sternberg, 42,
Reitman’s real-life husband,
played Kate’s husband,
Nathan. Sternberg has a
long track record as a top
Canadian TV producer. He
and Catherine have been
married for 14 years and
have two children. Nice to
note: In a recent interview,
Reitman called her husband
“my best friend.”
Working Moms isn’t a
huge hit, but it found a
quite big audience on
Netflix. The main criticism
is it focuses too much on
upper-class women.
Reitman is the daughter
of Ivan Reitman (1946-
2022), a Canadian Jew who
directed a slew of huge
hits, including Ghostbusters
and Kindergarten Cop.
Catherine’s brother, Jason
Reitman, 45, is a top film
director whose hits include
Juno. The siblings’ mother,
Geneviève Robert, is a
French Canadian who
converted to Judaism.
Dianna Agron, 37,
became well known when
she played Quinn Fabray,
a star character on the hit
series Glee (2007-2014).
She chose to appear in
smallish indie films after
Glee and began a singing
career. Since 2020, she has
amped up her film career
again.
As noted in a recent
Rolling Stone interview
(May 7), this “amp-up” finds
Agron playing identifiable
Jewish characters for the
first time. In Shiva Baby
(2020), she played what
seemed to be the only
major non-Jewish character
— but then it comes
out that “maybe” her
character’s father is Jewish.
In the recently released
Hulu horror film Clock,
Agron plays a young
Jewish woman who
reluctantly agrees to be
a patient in a medical
program that’s supposed
to increase her fertility. The
Holocaust features in the
plot.
Agron’s Jewish father
was a Hyatt hotel manager.
Her homemaker mother is
a convert to Judaism.
Agron went to Hebrew
school and was a bat
mitzvah. A take-away from
the Rolling Stone piece is
that being Jewish is central
to Agron’s sense of self.
CELEBRITY NEWS
NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST
ARTS&LIFE
MONTCLAIR FILM FESTIVAL
Zoe Lister-Jones
TEDXTORONTO/JOSHUA BEST
Catherine Reitman
FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/GREG2600
Dianna Agron