There are so many things to love about the new Netflix film You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, that it seems almost churlish to single out the one big thing that I think it got wrong. So first - spoilers ahoy - let me say what I think it got right.
Yes to showing Jewish tweens living their lives, doing their thing, and grappling with the social and spiritual demands of a year when everyone around them is doing that too. Yes to every member of the Sandler family giving a great performance, and that goes for Idina Menzel as well. Yes to the way that the kids struggle for individuality in a world where every party has the same DJ and much the same set of guests. A qualified yes to the deeply irritating but ultimately wise kooky rabbi.
There’s a great cast of older Jewish character actors and young stars in the making. And it's nice to see an emphasis on the synagogue and 'mitzvah project' side of things, not just the party.
Well done too for showing tweens as flawed humans, capable of great cruelty and stupidity but who are also willing to grow and learn, and use the big rite of passage as a vehicle for that growth. There are plotholes, sure (the broiges from Lydia’s batmitzvah would have rumbled on for generations), but you roll with it. I had tears in my eyes at the (implausible) ending.
