Menashe

Set in Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox Borough Park neighborhood, this is the story of a Jewish widower named Menashe (Menashe Lustig), who has lost custody of his beloved 10-year-old son, Rieven (Ruben Niborski). According to strict Hasidic custom, the youngster cannot be raised by a single parent, so Menashe’s married, financially secure, judgmental brother-in-law Eizik (Yoel Weisshaus) has become Rieven’s guardian. Rebellious Menashe is a portly, disheveled klutz who refuses to wear the traditional long black coat and hat. He is the epitome of the luckless schlimazel. Although the rabbi (Meyer Schwartz) encourages Menashe to re-marry to provide an appropriate home in which to raise Rieven, Menashe doesn’t want a new wife. All he wants is his precious son. Working in a small, kosher convenience store, Menashe’s earnings are meager, so he will be hard-pressed to host a proper reception in his tiny apartment after the memorial for his late wife, who died a year ago. But that is something he’s determined to do. Loosely based on actual events in Yiddish comedian and star Lustig’s life, filmmaker Joshua Z. Weinstein’s Menashe is a sensitive, unconventional character study, offering a sympathetic glimpse into the cultural mores and manners of the self-segregated Hasidic community, punctuated by a subtly melancholy musical score. Recommended. (S. Granger)