Alan in Belfast: Between the Temples – organising an unorthodox bat mitzvah heralds freedom (Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 23 August)

Ben is depressed and unsettled, a cantor at his local synagogue who has lost the confidence to lead worship. His old school music teacher Carla wants to reconnect with her Jewish faith and heritage. Both are widowed, and a chance meeting connects Carla with someone who could prepare her for the bat mitzvah that she missed out on as a teenager. But two mothers, a devoutly atheist son and a rabbi’s daughter, never mind the pair’s own insecurities, threaten to disrupt the healing process.

Jason Schwartzman portrays a middle-aged man who is totally lost. Throughout Between the Temples, he shows off a wide range of coughs as Ben struggles to recapture the voice so crucial to his job. Opposite him, a raspy Carol Kane conjures up Carla with a laid-back attitude and an open heart. This is a woman at an age and a stage where she wants to be heard. Together they are an odd couple, though they would struggle to see themselves being defined that way.

Every character has obvious flaws or lives under some sort of a societal cloud which brings with it comical consequences. Rabbi Bruce (Robert Smigel) is good at bending rules, although that extends to cheating at golf. His daughter’s broken engagement has labelled her as ‘damaged goods’ and both she (Gabby played by Madeline Weinstein) and her father assume Ben might be a route to social salvation. She also represents a ghost from Ben’s past, a timeline of continuity that confronts him.

Co-writers Nathan Silver and C. Mason Wells aren’t afraid to inject the script with cultural detail and quirks. So watch out for the Protestant girl on his Jewish dating app, and the different approaches taken by Ben’s mothers: the artistic one (Caroline Aaron) and the pushy estate agent/realtor (Dolly De Leon). A claustrophobic dinner scene eventually unpacks everyone’s pent up frustrations.

The dialogue is peppered with one-liners: some zing, and others linger like existential questions hovering over the storyline. “Have we made some choices?” asks a waiter in a restaurant with comedy-sized menus. “Hell, yes” your heart will cry as you witness Carla’s son’s (Nat played by Matthew Shear) coercive and belittling attitude.

Like another recent release – Only The River Flows – Between the Temples is shot on 16mm film and revels in the graininess and the softer colour tones. While much of the film is edited like a fly on the wall documentary – albeit with very exaggerated characters – there are abrupt stylistic changes to reflect changes in Ben’s wellbeing.

Between the Temples is a somewhat unorthodox film. It’s charming and a sweet story the open ending suggests that Ben and Carla may well be the sanest and least troubled characters in the whole menagerie of mayhem. A rom com with the ‘rom’ artfully disguised and ill-defined. It’s being screened at Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 23 August.