A young man steps off the bus from Minnesota in 1960s Greenwich Village. We’ll come to know him as Bob Dylan. His real name? Robert Zimmerman.
Meanwhile, Ani prefers to be called Annie. The actress who plays her goes by Mikey Madison. Her real name? Mikaela Madison Rosenberg.
Yes, I’m describing “A Complete Unknown” and “Anora,” two of the entrants into this year’s Oscars Best Picture race. Both of them are fairly Jewish movies, in their themes, in their characters and in the actors who play their characters.
But they’re far from the only Oscar competitors that deal with the big A word: Assimilation. Between “A Complete Unknown,” “Anora,” “The Brutalist,” and “A Real Pain”, these very Jewish movies mean it’s shaping up to be a very Jewish year at Movies’ Biggest Night. Although “A Real Pain” didn’t end up making the cut for Best Picture, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that it, more than any other film in recent memory, succinctly speaks to the experience of being Jewish (or a Jewish millennial) today. From the film’s very first moments — where Benji (Jesse Eisenberg) calls his cousin David (Kieran Culkin) and leaves him three separate voicemails updating him on traffic on the BQE, I knew we were in for a movie that would speak to the specificity of Jewish neuroses in the grand tradition of filmmakers like Nora Ephron or Joan Micklin Silver or Paul Mazursky.
And what about the slew of other movies up for the big prize? How Jewish is “The Substance”? “Wicked”? “I’m Still Here”? What about “Conclave”? More Jewish than you’d think, I’d argue. I’ve ranked this year’s Best Picture nominees based on how Jewish they are, taking into account the movie’s themes, dialogue, cast and creative team, and the question: How Jewish did I feel when I was watching it? While it may seem like an intangible question to answer, I think it’s the most important one of all.
Of course, this is to say nothing of the quality of these films; many of them are stunning, gripping films, independent of how Jewish they may be. Some are both. Some are just one or the other. And some, well — one — isn’t much of either.
10. “Emilia Perez”
The most Jewish thing about this movie is the shame and guilt I feel about spending over two hours watching it when I could have been doing literally anything else.
1 out of 5 Jewish stars
9. “Nickel Boys”
“Nickel Boys” tells the harrowing story of two young boys, Elwood and Turner, as they face abuse at their segregated reform school in Florida during the Jim Crow era. The boys each have a different approach to their circumstances; Turner is more hardened, cynical, while Elwood believes there’s still fairness to be had in the world. While not Jewish in its content, it speaks to the Jewish teachings of Adam yehidi nivra, Every person is a unique creation and Every life, a universe. Filmed in first-person POV (meaning the camera shows you the world as its characters see it), “Nickel Boys” brings you closer to experiencing the world how someone else might see it, and understanding the hopes, dreams and plight of others unlike yourself.
2 out of 5 Jewish stars
8. “I’m Still Here”
Similar to “Nickel Boys,” “I’m Still Here” isn’t a Jewish movie, but its themes should speak to any Jewish person concerned about the ongoing rise of fascism around the world (as, really, everyone should be). Based on the true story of former Brazilian congressman Rubens Paiva, Eunice Paiva (Fernanda Torres) and her family are thrown into turmoil when her husband is taken political prisoner in January 1971 by the military dictatorship, under the leadership of General Emílio Garrastazu Médici. The signs of encroaching totalitarianism are the same as they are in other countries, in other eras; people are watched, their lives threatened, and they are labeled dissidents for speaking out or possessing differing views. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that the Paivas are forever altered by these events, and we see over time how memories may fade and certain ways of life are lost, but the pain of what this family and their country endured remains.
2 out of 5 Jewish stars
7. “Conclave”
OK, hear me out here. I understand that on its face, “Conclave,” a movie about a bunch of bitchy priests trying to pick the next bitchy priest, is not a Jewish movie. Not even a little bit. But you could also control + find and control + replace those priests with a bunch of bitchy rabbis trying to vote on something related to another bitchy rabbi and in many ways I think the movie would still work pretty well. Picture, for example, Fred Melamed, Bob Balaban, Richard Kind and Billy Crystal all sniping at each other and I think we have a hit on our hands. Stanley Tucci can still be in it, too, if he wants.
Believe it or not, 3 out of 5 Jewish stars
6. “Wicked”
Listen, we all have that one girl in our bunk in our sleepaway camp that we can’t stand. Yet by the end of eight weeks, forced proximity makes you realize that maybe you have more in common with her than you thought. And yeah, you become really close in that contained period of time, but eventually, you realize you have to go your separate ways, with one of you serving as a mouthpiece for the far-right government, and the other leading the resistance movement with some flying monkeys. What I’m saying is that every Jewish sleepaway camp has a Glinda, which makes “Wicked” at least a little bit Jewish.
3.25 out of 5 Jewish stars
5. “The Substance”
Jewish lore warns of dybbuks, evil spirits that can enter the body and seize control of the beholder, vanquished only by exorcism. Now, watch “The Substance” and tell me that Sue isn’t Elisabeth’s dybbuk.
3.5 out of 5 Jewish stars
4. “Dune: Part II”
First of all, Paul Atreides’ (Timothee Chalamet) curls thrive in the desert heat, as do my own. Secondly, and not to play into any stereotypes, but we all know that Jewish mother who is a little too convinced of her son’s greatness.
3.75 out of 5 Jewish stars
3. “Anora”
For those of you who feel like you’ve seen every block of Williamsburg and the Upper West Side committed to film, “Anora” is a breath of fresh air, bringing us to the (still very Jewish) enclave of Brighton Beach. Anora, or Ani, as she’s asked to be called for most of the film, is a sex worker who is paired off by her boss with Ivan, a Russian oligarch’s son because of her ability, if not to speak Russian, to understand it. Ani’s loss of her ethnicity speaks to the assimilated immigrant experience, as does her desire to transcend beyond the aforementioned enclave and the house she shares with her sister. Plus, we have two star-turning performances from two up-and-coming Jewish actors, Mikey Madison and Mark Eydelshteyn, known to some as “the Russian Timothée Chalamet.”
4 out of 5 Jewish stars
2. “A Complete Unknown”
Speaking of Timothée Chalamet, it is thanks to him we don’t have to argue about how much it matters whether or not the actor who plays Bob Dylan is Jewish, because baruch hashem, he is! . The wunderkind assumes the role of another wunderkind as he molds himself from the man Robert Zimmerman to the legend Bob Dylan. While the film doesn’t delve into this too deeply, the underground leftist folk scene that Dylan becomes part of and helped make famous was propped up by other Jews. I would like another film, or maybe three, about this more specifically.
4.25 out of 5 Jewish stars
1. “The Brutalist”
It should come as no real surprise that “The Brutalist” is the most Jewish Best Picture nominee, as the film follows Holocaust survivor László Tóth, a Brutalist architect who arrives in Philadelphia after emigrating to America and later moves — thanks to a once-in-a-lifetime commission — to Doylestown. (Please know alarm bells went off in my head as soon as I saw him get on a bus out of New York City.) Tóth (Adrien Brody) and his family have, suffice it to say, an extremely tough time assimilating into American culture following the war; the way this country deals them cruel blows at every turn is devastating to watch, and certainly a reminder that what many of us have today was hard-won.
Plus, it is also very Jewish to make people sit through a three hour movie about the Holocaust.
4.75 out of 5 Jewish stars
