The Outside Chance of Maximilian Glick

This little charmer begins slowly--and for non-Jewish viewers--a bit confusingly with the story of a 13-year-old Canadian boy named Max Glick (Noam Zylberman) who's family--meaning father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, aunts, uncles, etc.--are preparing him for his bar mitzvah. The Yiddish flows freely, and the stereotypes seem benign if rather commonplace. Gradually, however, the story blossoms as Max decides to enter a piano competition with a shiksa partner named Celia. Max's extended family disapproves. But he gets an unlikely partner in his corner, when the local rabbi dies and is replaced by a wisecracking rabbi from Chicago (Saul Rubinek). What begins as a Jewish sitcom quickly becomes a tender and touching story of a man and a boy; the one having lost his dream as he grew older, the other still having a chance to realize his in the wide-open world of adolescence. Winner of several awards from Canadian film festivals, this fine family film is highly recommended. (R. Pitman)