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Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Between the Temples is not a documentary or a conventional romantic comedy. It is Nathan Silver’s 2024 American comedy-drama about Ben Gottlieb (Jason Schwartzman), a grieving cantor who has lost his singing voice, and Carla Kessler (Carol Kane), his former elementary-school music teacher, who returns to his life hoping to prepare for an adult bat mitzvah.
What begins as a series of lessons becomes a strange, tender, and frequently uncomfortable exchange. Carla is trying to claim a religious milestone on her own terms; Ben is trying to find a way back into music, community, and ordinary life. The film’s real subject is the possibility of beginning again when grief, age, family expectations, and religious doubt have made forward motion feel impossible.
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What is Between the Temples about?
Directed by Nathan Silver and co-written by Silver and C. Mason Wells, Between the Temples follows Ben Gottlieb, a forty-something cantor whose life has stalled after the death of his wife. His grief is not presented as a single dramatic event that he simply needs to overcome. It has settled into his body and routines: he has withdrawn from his work, cannot sing, and is living with his two mothers rather than managing an independent life.
Ben’s professional identity depends on his voice. As a cantor, singing is not an ornamental skill; it is part of how he serves his congregation and participates in Jewish communal life. His inability to sing therefore represents both a practical crisis and a deeper loss of confidence and agency. The film introduces that crisis through a character who is surrounded by ritual but unable to inhabit it fully.
#1 Best Overall
Carla Kessler, once Ben’s grade-school music teacher, reappears and asks him to help her prepare for an adult bat mitzvah. Her request gives Ben a task, but it also creates a relationship in which neither person remains simply the teacher or the student. Ben helps Carla approach Hebrew, music, and Jewish ritual. Carla, in turn, reconnects him with the musical and emotional parts of himself that grief has suppressed.
The result is a comedy-drama about two people using a shared project to regain some control over their lives. It is also a film about the difference between belonging to a community and feeling at home within it.
Is it a romance?
There is romantic and sexual tension between Ben and Carla, but describing Between the Temples as a straightforward age-gap romance misses much of what makes the film unusual. Their connection is deliberately difficult to categorize. It includes elements of friendship, mentorship, attraction, emotional dependence, artistic collaboration, and mutual rescue—although “rescue” itself is too simple, because neither character cures the other.
Silver has described the relationship as something intended to resist a neat label. That ambiguity is important. The film asks viewers to decide what kind of intimacy they are witnessing rather than supplying a familiar romantic template. Ben and Carla are drawn together partly because each recognizes something unfinished in the other: Ben’s life has narrowed around bereavement, while Carla wants to pursue a milestone that feels personally meaningful even if others regard her timing as unusual.
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Carol Kane and Jason Schwartzman make the relationship compelling because they play its awkwardness rather than smoothing it away. Kane gives Carla an alert, searching energy; she can be funny, assertive, needy, embarrassing, and sincere within the same scene. Schwartzman’s Ben is more withdrawn, often seeming to observe his own life from a distance. Their contrast creates both the film’s comedy and its emotional friction.
The relationship also challenges assumptions about who is allowed to start over. Carla is not treated merely as an older character having a late-life crisis, and Ben is not reduced to a grieving widower waiting for a younger or more conventional romantic future. Their bond is messy because the film is interested in unconventional intimacy as a real form of human connection, not simply as a plot twist.
Grief is shown as a loss of voice
Ben’s inability to sing is the film’s clearest physical expression of grief. He has not merely become sad; he has lost access to the act that once connected him to his vocation, his congregation, and perhaps his own identity. His voice is professional, spiritual, and personal at the same time.
Rank #2
That makes Carla’s presence especially significant. She was a music teacher before she became Ben’s adult bat mitzvah student, so their connection is rooted in breathing, pitch, memory, rehearsal, and performance. The lessons are not just about preparing Carla for a ceremony. They create a setting in which Ben has to listen, demonstrate, respond, and eventually risk making sound again.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsThe film does not suggest that a new relationship magically resolves bereavement. Instead, recovery happens through repeated acts of participation. Ben has to show up for Carla, engage with his family, return to religious spaces, and confront the expectations attached to his job. Carla also has to study, expose her uncertainty, and decide what the bat mitzvah means to her rather than treating it as a performance for other people.
In that sense, singing becomes a form of agency. To recover the voice is not necessarily to erase pain. It is to regain the ability to act while pain is still present.
Jewish identity, ritual, and disagreement
The film is deeply situated in Jewish communal life. Its world includes cantorial singing, Hebrew study, Shabbat, kosher practice, synagogue politics, bat mitzvah preparation, and arguments over what counts as correct or appropriate ritual behavior. These details are not decorative background. They provide the social structure through which Ben and Carla understand—and contest—their identities.
Between the Temples is particularly interested in the space between secular Jewish identity and organized religious practice. The film does not present Judaism as a single, uniform experience, nor does it function as religious instruction. Its characters question traditions, misunderstand them, perform them imperfectly, and sometimes use them to negotiate family or communal pressure.
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That approach produces much of the film’s humor. The jokes are aimed not only at religious institutions but also at the characters’ attempts to use, resist, reinterpret, or perform tradition. Ritual can be stabilizing, but it can also become a source of anxiety when communities police its details or when participants feel they are being evaluated.
Carla’s adult bat mitzvah is therefore more than a quirky premise. It gives an older woman a self-defined public milestone. Whether she missed the opportunity earlier, did not want it then, or simply wants to claim it now, the ceremony represents a decision to begin on her own timetable. Her preparation raises questions about who gets to participate, who gets to be recognized, and whether religious belonging requires unquestioning certainty.
Rank #3
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Published reporting indicates that the filmmakers consulted Jewish subject-matter experts during production, including Rabbi Mikey Hess Weber, Robert Smigel, and b’nai mitzvah tutor Jesse Miller. That consultation helps explain the film’s attention to Hebrew, ritual, and synagogue life, but it does not make the movie a comprehensive or representative portrait of Judaism. It remains a stylized, adult comedy-drama shaped by Silver’s particular sensibility. The Forward’s reporting on the film’s Jewish themes and consultation provides useful context for viewers interested in that distinction.
A comedy of discomfort, not a family bat mitzvah movie
The premise may sound warm and wholesome: a former teacher prepares for a long-delayed religious ceremony with help from her former student. The film itself is more anxious and abrasive. Its comedy comes from social discomfort, emotional misjudgment, family interference, institutional awkwardness, and people behaving badly while trying to do something meaningful.
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Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →That tonal mixture is central to the movie. Moments of tenderness can be interrupted by embarrassment, and scenes that appear to promise emotional resolution may instead become more complicated. The film is willing to let its characters be needy, selfish, ridiculous, or confused. This keeps the story from turning ritual into a simple cure for grief or romance into a clean reward for vulnerability.
The movie is rated R, with available descriptions citing sexual references and language. It should not be approached as a family-friendly religious film or as straightforward Jewish educational material. Its setting may be communal and spiritual, but its humor is adult, irreverent, and intentionally uncomfortable.
Nathan Silver’s visual and directorial style
Silver directed Between the Temples as his ninth feature. Sean Price Williams shot the film on 16mm, giving the images a tactile, independent-film quality rather than a polished studio finish. Film at Lincoln Center specifically highlights the 16mm cinematography and the performances by Kane and Schwartzman.
The visual texture suits a story about people caught between public roles and private disorder. Synagogue spaces, family homes, classrooms, and rehearsal environments feel lived-in rather than idealized. The film’s world is not a neutral backdrop: it is a network of rooms in which people are watched, judged, instructed, interrupted, and occasionally allowed to be vulnerable.
The film was shot in the Kingston, New York area. Production-location data associates the synagogue setting with Congregation Emanuel of the Hudson Valley, although that location information is less authoritative than the film’s official and festival materials. The principal credited producers are Tim Headington, Theresa Steele Page, Nate Kamiya, Adam Kersh, and Taylor Hess, with Ley Line Entertainment and Fusion Entertainment among the production companies.
Rank #4
Cast and key creative credits
- Jason Schwartzman as Ben Gottlieb
- Carol Kane as Carla Kessler
- Caroline Aaron and Dolly De Leon as Ben’s mothers
- Robert Smigel as Rabbi Bruce
- Madeline Weinstein and Matthew Shear in supporting roles
- Nathan Silver and C. Mason Wells, screenplay
- Sean Price Williams, cinematography
- John Magary, editing
The central performances are the film’s most consistently praised feature. Kane brings Carla both comic unpredictability and emotional purpose, while Schwartzman plays Ben’s paralysis without making him entirely passive. Their chemistry depends on friction: they are not naturally comfortable together, and that discomfort is precisely what makes their exchanges feel alive.
Release history
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| January 19, 2024 | World premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in the U.S. Dramatic Competition |
| February 2024 | Sony Pictures Classics acquired worldwide distribution rights, according to trade coverage and later distribution materials |
| June 5–16, 2024 | Tribeca Festival screening as a Spotlight Narrative selection and New York premiere |
| August 23, 2024 | U.S. theatrical release through Sony Pictures Classics |
| September 24, 2024 | Reported U.S. digital release date |
| November 12, 2024 | Reported physical DVD release date |
The film premiered at Sundance and later played Tribeca as a Spotlight Narrative selection. Its official distributor is Sony Pictures Classics.
Where to watch Between the Temples
For U.S. viewers, Sony’s official film page currently presents digital options including Apple TV, Prime Video, and Fandango at Home. Availability, pricing, subtitles, and purchase-versus-rental options can change by date, country, and platform account, so check the distributor’s page and the individual service before paying.
Home-media options
The film also received a physical home-media release. Sony Pictures Classics lists Between the Temples in its DVD archive. If you prefer to keep a copy or revisit the film without relying on changing streaming licenses, the Between the Temples DVD is the most direct physical-media option.
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Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Reception and awards
Critical response has been broadly favorable, especially toward Kane and Schwartzman’s performances, the film’s distinctive Jewish-American setting, and its combination of tenderness and discomfort. Rotten Tomatoes’ score is time-sensitive; the research snapshot listed an 84% critics score from 119 reviews, but that figure can change as new reviews are added or the site updates its calculation.
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The film’s strongest critical appeal is its specificity. Rather than using religion as a generic source of atmosphere, it builds its comedy and emotional stakes from the details of communal practice. Reviews have also differed in how they weigh the film’s tonal shifts and its deliberately awkward relationship, so a high-level consensus should not be mistaken for universal agreement.
Carol Kane won the New York Film Critics Circle’s 2024 award for Best Supporting Actress for Between the Temples. The award is listed by the New York Film Critics Circle. Nathan Silver and C. Mason Wells also received recognition in festival and critics-award contexts, but individual secondary wins should be verified separately before being used as a prominent awards claim.
Who should watch it?
Watch Between the Temples if you enjoy character-driven independent films, unconventional relationship stories, socially awkward comedy, or movies that treat religious practice as a living source of identity and disagreement. It is especially suited to viewers interested in stories about late-life beginnings, grief that does not follow a tidy timetable, and the ways music and ritual can reconnect people to their communities.
Approach it with the right expectations. This is not a documentary about Judaism, a guide to preparing for a bat mitzvah, or a conventional feel-good romance. It is an R-rated fictional comedy-drama about two adults whose attempt to prepare for a ceremony becomes a way of testing what they owe to family, faith, work, and themselves.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is Between the Temples a true story?
No. It is a fictional 2024 comedy-drama directed by Nathan Silver and co-written by Silver and C. Mason Wells. The filmmakers consulted Jewish subject-matter experts, but the film is not presented as a biographical or comprehensive account of Jewish life.
What is the relationship between Ben and Carla?
Ben is a grieving cantor, and Carla is his former elementary-school music teacher who asks him to help her prepare for an adult bat mitzvah. Their connection develops into an intentionally ambiguous mixture of friendship, mentorship, attraction, and mutual emotional support rather than a simple conventional romance.
Is Between the Temples family-friendly?
No. The film is rated R, with sexual references and language among the cited content considerations. Its humor is adult, irreverent, and often uncomfortable.
Where was Between the Temples filmed?
The film was shot in the Kingston, New York area. Production-location data associates its synagogue setting with Congregation Emanuel of the Hudson Valley, though the official and festival sources are more authoritative for the film’s broader production details.
How long is Between the Temples?
The film has a reported runtime of 111 minutes and is in English.
The Bottom Line
Between the Temples works best as an off-kilter, adult story about grief and re-entry: Ben and Carla do not find a tidy solution, but their shared engagement with music and Jewish ritual gives both of them a reason to participate in life again. Carol Kane and Jason Schwartzman supply the film’s emotional and comic center, while Nathan Silver uses the synagogue, the family home, and the rehearsal space to explore belonging as something people continually negotiate rather than simply possess.
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