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Keeping the Faith (2000)
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Reviews Counted:113
Fresh:77
Rotten:36
Average Rating:6.2/10
Consensus: Norton's steady hand delivers a comedy filled with clever humor and enlightened performances.
Runtime: 2 hrs 9 mins
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis: In actor Edward Norton's directorial debut, Brian (Norton), a priest, and his best friend, Jake (Ben Stiller), a rabbi, both fall in love with their long-lost childhood friend, Anna (Jenna Elfman),... In actor Edward Norton's directorial debut, Brian (Norton), a priest, and his best friend, Jake (Ben Stiller), a rabbi, both fall in love with their long-lost childhood friend, Anna (Jenna Elfman), who has returned to Manhattan to pursue her hectic business career. However, Brian has taken a vow of celibacy, and Jake is constantly being set up by Jewish mothers in his temple. The workaholic Anna isn't Jewish, but this doesn't stop her from returning Jake's affection and beginning a relationship that they hide from Brian. As their relationship progresses, complications arise, leading Jake, Brian, and Anna to deal with questions of both religious and romantic faith. As Rabbi Jake, Stiller once again displays his excellent comic timing, and his scenes with Elfman, Norton, and Anne Bancroft (as Jake's traditional Jewish mother) carry KEEPING THE FAITH. Set in lushly filmed New York City, Norton's film exhudes an innocent charm that's sure to please audiences of all denominations. [More]
Starring: Ben Stiller, Jenna Elfman, Edward Norton, Anne Bancroft
Starring: Ben Stiller, Jenna Elfman, Edward Norton, Anne Bancroft, Milos Forman, Eli Wallach, Ron Rifkin, Rena Sofer, Holland Taylor, Ken Leung, Kryss Anderson
Director: Edward Norton
Director: Edward Norton
Screenwriter: Stuart Blumberg
Producer: Edward Norton, Howard W. "Hawk" Koch, Stuart Blumberg
Composer: Elmer Bernstein
Reviews for Keeping the Faith
A romantic triangle dating movie as confected, and nearly as wholesome, as a '50s Universal bedroom farce, but lacking the confidence and zest.
A smart and good-natured picture, conscientious without pretension, a good mixture of romance, buddy movie, and verbal and thematic humour. Trust me.
A thoroughly entertaining little film, full of terrific performances and some hilarious moments.
Keeping the Faith's hipness is limited to a couple of one-liners. Its exploration of faith and love is skin deep.
[A] pallid, witless comedy of interfaith romance which would have seemed embarrassingly weak as a Borscht Belt resort skit in 1959.
A contrived script and lackluster performances are the worst sins of this uninspired comedy.
Everything seems too glossy, crises are resolved too easily, situations seem pat.
None of the performances in Keeping the Faith is particularly noteworthy.
The very real problems posed by interfaith relationships — the potential loss of traditions and collective memories, questions about what faith actually means — are turned into nervous jokes about gospel choirs, cell phones and karaoke machines.
[Norton] fails to impose any kind of unique stamp on the rather deliberate screenplay.
What the film did fairly well was show a tolerant attitude by both the retiring rabbi (Eli Wallach) and the veteran priest (Milos Forman).
The very existence of a movie like Keeping the Faith inevitably leads one to wonder whether God has a sense of humor.
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