Between the Temples is often funny, sometimes uncomfortable to watch, and, despite its flaws, quite moving.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 3, 2024

Singing in its own key, there might not be a more authentic and purely entertaining film this year.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 30, 2024

Director Nathan Silver’s hopeful film demonstrates the adaptability of tradition, and the possibility of reconciliation and continuity across the generations.

| Aug 30, 2024

There is something about watching people having a really really hard time which can be very very funny, and there's also a real sweetness at the center of its story.

| Aug 28, 2024

The complexity and the layers of partially healed emotional scars that underpin [Carol Kane's] sunny, goofy performance in Between the Temples make this a career-best contender for the 72-year-old actor.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 26, 2024

Silver’s ninth feature revels in capturing the alchemical, off-kilter chaos of oddballs in proximity; what makes it special has as much to do with the strange, spontaneous energies that fill the air between his characters as what it is they’re saying.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 24, 2024

The humor—sometimes acerbic, sometimes wacky—is integral to its worldview and exaggerated, stubborn characters.

| Original Score: B+ | Aug 23, 2024

Both stars -- romantic leads with character actor cred -- have the power to be funny and heartbreaking simultaneously, and their unique chemistry drives the film’s craziness and humanity.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 23, 2024

“Between the Temples” emerges as a quirky and effective showcase for two actors known for playing oddball characters. Kane and Schwartzman bounce off each other so well that their work alone makes the film worth seeing.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 23, 2024

A thematically rich film, delving into the complexities of religious identity, the burden of expectation, and the quest for personal growth. The film offers a rich and rewarding cinematic experience.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 23, 2024

“Between the Temples" is not going to pretend that life or its characters know what they’re doing and we are not going to get the satisfying resolution you might expect. Instead you will see an excellent cast play characters who try to find their way.

| Original Score: B- | Aug 23, 2024

The relationship that unfolds, with shades of Harold and Maude, is honest and unsparing, as well as being blatantly Freudian.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 22, 2024

The movie is consistently funny, but its humor tends to be fairly gentle because it’s rooted in human behavior rather than in condescending, judgmental ideas about such behavior.

| Aug 22, 2024

Schwartzman is very affecting as a perplexed, tragicomic galoot and Kane is a marvel.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 22, 2024

Shot wanly on film in wintertime, Between the Temples takes a while to reveal its depths – its linguistic wit, its cockeyed humor and compassion, how it can modulate from deadpan-slapstick to achingly poignant and still feel authentic in both keys.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 22, 2024

With both misery and comedy, director Nathan Silver satisfyingly captures the Jewish experience.

| Aug 22, 2024

The real attraction here is the interplay between the two leads, which makes “Between the Temples” sing.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 21, 2024

Although sometimes dizzying and disorienting, the visual language of Between the Temples is relentlessly alive, with the camera never considering-slash-allowing for the possibility that its audiences’ eyes might wander.

| Aug 21, 2024

It’s a little weird, a little sweet and a lot of awkward -- a testament not just to the Jewish tradition but the faith we can learn to have in each other.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 19, 2024

In this winningly chaotic comedy, you can almost feel the characters and filmmakers, as one, resisting order and pushing back against convention.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 19, 2024