Keeping the Faith (2000)

Starring: Edward Norton, Ben Stiller, Jenna Elfman, Anne Bancroft, Eli Wallach, and Babu from Seinfeld
Grade: C

In Edward Norton’s directorial debut, he tries his hand at a romantic comedy.

Ehh…

It could’ve been better.

Summary

In the opening, we see Catholic Priest Brian Finn (Norton) drinking, walking, and stumbling the streets of New York. He stops at a bar to drink further and weeps over a picture from his childhood. The bartender (Brian George) tries to guess his romantic situation and that’s why his woman left him, but Brian shows his clerical collar to show why it’s a bit more complicated than he thinks. Brian shows him the picture of the three children, telling the bartender that one is him, the other his best friend and current rabbi Jake (Stiller), and the girl is Anna (Elfman). They were the best of friends, meeting in sixth grade at a school in Manhattan. Brian and Jake were already friends but after a “defining moment” when they were being bullied, and Anna took out the bully with a kick to the groin, the three became an inseparable trio. The summer after 8th grade, Anna had to move to California, effectively ending the trio. Ever since then, Brian and Jake got closer as friends, and they became fascinated with each other’s religions. At an early age, Brian felt like he had a higher calling to become a priest. On the other hand, Jake took some time. He was smart and popular and took religion as more of a hobby. His family tried to convince him to join their investment banking firm, but he decided to become a rabbi instead. Once they both graduated from the seminaries they were involved in, they were both assigned back to New York City.

Though both got off to troubling starts, they started to save their respective places of worship through entertaining and interactive sermons. Eventually, they’re performing to packed houses. Their collective idea has been to modernize their religions and push the envelope. One of their first major plans they have to do so is to turn this abandoned gay disco into a joint Catholic-Jewish senior center/karaoke lounge.

During their shootaround at the local public basketball court, Jake tells Brian that Rabbi Lewis (Wallach) is retiring. Now, it’s only a matter of time before Jake takes over, but the problem is that not a lot of people on the board agree with his methods. On top of that, Jake’s single and needs to find someone within six months. Otherwise, he doesn’t get the job. Jake is worried though because he doesn’t want a woman that likes him just because he’s a rabbi. After getting their asses kicked in a two-on-two pickup game, Brian mentions that Anna called to tell him she’s in town for work and wanted to get together with the both of them. Sometime later, they pick her up from the airport where she clues them in on her life. She describes her job as “fixing leaky corporations” and since she works so much, she doesn’t have much time for relationships. They go out for a night on the town, and it leads to Anna asking about their women situations, with Jake pointing out how awkward it is for him since everyone tries to set him up on blind dates he doesn’t want to go on. Just that morning, a mother faxed a resume of her daughter to him, and he has to go on a date with her later.

Under the “skills” section, she put jogging. This one is a real winner.

Following the disastrous date that he was with the woman, he considers calling Anna at a pay phone but decides against it. The next day, Anna calls him at his office to ask how the date went. They talk for a little, and there’s a bit of light flirting and joking conversation about the whole thing, but we can tell Jake is pondering things once he hangs up. Sometime later, Brian and Anna go to Jake’s next service where he brings in the Harlem Gospel Choir to sing a song in a very non-traditional way. Afterwards, numerous women are all over him to congratulate him on the service, and mothers are introducing him to their daughters left and right. Eventually, it leads him to a reporter from ABC in Rachel Rose (Rena Sofer) and her mother Bonnie (Holland Taylor). He agrees to hang out with Rachel on Thursday. However, Rabbi Lewis takes Jake into a meeting with Jake’s superiors because they are less than thrilled with his stunt with the Harlem Gospel Choir. With the exception of Lewis, none of them are fans of Jake’s modern style, despite his ability to draw crowds. Once the meeting is over, Lewis tries to calm Jake down. He likes Jake’s ideas, but he notes Jake is a little too aggressive with his style and needs to understand that tradition isn’t necessarily old hat. It’s just comforting for a lot of people.

After Jake and Anna go to see Jake’s mother Ruth (Bancroft), and they talk about Jake’s potential with Rachel Rose, Anna goes to walk and talk with Brian. They discuss Brian’s devotion to Catholicism and how he can’t have sex on the account of him being a priest. He says he’s over it now, so Anna gives him a lot of credit for being able to do so. They meet up with Jake for lunch and give him advice on where to take Rose. With so much advice and him slightly panicking on where to take his high-profile date, he begs Brian to take Anna with him on a double date venture with him and Rose to make him feel more comfortable. The double date doesn’t go amazingly well, but one thing we do notice is Jake starting to notice Anna a bit more once Rachel leaves the table to answer a phone call. He also manages to secure a second date with Rachel. On the cab ride home, Brian seems to take a second look at Anna too, especially after acting as her boyfriend during the double date. He even asks her to come up to his apartment (not necessarily with sexual intentions but still), but she says she can’t this time. Even then, she kisses him goodnight, and Brian leaves walking on air. That night, Jake goes straight to Anna’s apartment, and they end up having sex.

Now, the complicated love triangle begins.

My Thoughts:

Keeping the Faith is a decent romantic comedy with flashes of something more. We start by introducing us to our two best friends (one a priest and the other a rabbi) and how they are very popular in the respective places of worship because of their attempt to modernize things with their young and upbeat styles. Edward Norton and Ben Stiller play the two popular figures very well, as they try to “kick the dust” of off their faiths and take “an old-world God” and put “a new age spin” on it. Early on, this grabs us as we wonder how this will affect the plot or the friendship of the characters. Honestly, it doesn’t. Jake has some problems with the higher-ups at one point but not enough for us to be truly bothered.

This whole movie is filled with empty promises and false hopes for something more memorable. Ultimately, the film is nothing special.

It doesn’t go far enough with its premise, and the main character of Brian seems to fall by the wayside once the Jake/Anna relationship begins. The premise is what attracted me to the movie in the first place, so I was expecting something a bit more. It didn’t have to be edgy or anything, I was just expecting the religious aspect to play a bigger factor, or hurdle for the characters. Unfortunately, the love triangle can’t fully commence because the religion aspect also hinders the plot. It allows for Jake to pursue and Brian to fight his urges and accept the fact he can’t pursue. It teases Brian considering it, but it’s only for a short time. Even then, Anna never even considered Brian as a potential partner, so it’s a moot point anyway. It’s a love triangle to Brian, but it’s not to everyone else. Herein lies the problem with Keeping the Faith. The basic premise is explained as if we are getting a serious love triangle with two men involved in very different religions and a woman who loves them both but isn’t necessarily associated with one herself. This could give us a lot of entertaining and relatively tense moments for a romantic comedy, but the story isn’t exactly what’s advertised.

The chemistry between Ben Stiller and Jenna Elfman is enjoyable. Elfman in particular is very alluring here. She’s not one of those Hollywood actresses you notice automatically as being crazy sexy or anything, but she’s portrayed so well here that we start to take notice at the beauty she is. She carries herself very well with her fun personality and toughness when work-focused that you can see why both men start to get attracted to her. Additionally, Jake and Anna together are very likable. We see early on why they are meant to be together. It seems so natural. Unfortunately, Edward Norton’s Brian felt somewhat unimportant once their relationship started. The buildup until that point was decent, but Anna having no attraction whatsoever to Brian was a total misstep. At the very least, you need to tease us a bit to the possibility. Give Brian more of a reason to possibly consider dropping his entire career, something he already considers doing during the movie when thinking of the possibility of her liking him.

Besides this, there are a handful of comical scenes and entertaining moments like Jake’s disaster date, the basketball game, and the whole conversation on speakerphone during the climax (Damn that T-Bone!). However, they are few and far between. The rest of the movie doesn’t really rise to the occasion, and it definitely doesn’t seem to warrant the extended runtime. Additionally, the problems that arise seem cleared up too easily. Again, this goes back to how the Brian character was handled. They just play off the fact that he’s religious and has to forgive and forget, but it’s unsatisfying for us as the viewer. At the end, when we see him react to the two on karaoke night, it feels insincere because of how easily everyone’s problems were handled and how his internal feelings weren’t settled to the degree we wanted.

He started out as the main character. Sadly, by the end, he’s a distant third, and we have a problem with that.

This may be a radical idea, especially for the time period, but here me out for a second. What if they did go with the full love triangle idea, with Anna falling in love with both men, but they made Anna a scientologist (much like Elfman in real life)? It would take one hell of a screenwriter to pull this off without being offensive, but it’s possible considering how inoffensive this movie already is. Now, this would create for some exciting conflict! Comedically, this idea could’ve made Keeping the Faith a game-changing film. Then again, it could have been a game-changing film as is, but they settled on keeping things relatively harmless, despite the initial goldmine of a premise.

The pitch alone would have had any studio sold on the comedic potential.

Considering Edward Norton was in the director’s chair and starring, and we have a prime Ben Stiller in a romantic comedy with a very intriguing plot, I was really interested in seeing what Keeping the Faith was all about. Ultimately, it was a decent one-time watch with a few bright spots. By the time it was over however, we aren’t too impressed. A lot of what went into making the final product felt underutilized or just underdelivered in general, whether it was coming from certain characters or plot points. Even if you look at it from the standpoint of a regular romantic comedy film, it’s not all that funny either. At best, it was okay with a couple of solid moments.