Loving Leah (2009)

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

My wife and I are Orthodox Jews addicted to the Perry Mason of our childhood. We couldn't resist watching Hallmark's presentation of levirate marriage, or yibum, but never expected we could stomach more than 20 minutes of it.The writers and directors certainly get credit for coming up with an original plot device to create romantic tension and resolution. This is Hallmark, after all, and we didn't expect all the dramatic unities to be observed, but we were pleased at the overall high quality of the research, writing and acting. There are Orthodox men who make a living outside the rabbinate, and non-Orthodox Jewish men who aren't cardiac surgeons, but avoiding these clichés might been too distracting. The mystical / romantic motivation was never made quite reasonable, but much worse was the simple fact that marriages religious and secular require sexual consummation in order to be valid. The whole point of yibum is that the wife should get pregnant with her brother-in-law's child and therefore continue her dead husband's family and name. Such a beginning would have ruined the plot and perhaps run afoul of Hallmark's standards and practices.One may quibble about this or that presentation of Jewish religious practice, but on the whole this movie did a good and conscientious job with remarkable few cringe-inducing mistakes. In the end it worked as a romantic comedy/drama which held our attention to the end.

I was a religious Jew once or I pretended to be, and I did crazy things like Leah do in the film. That's perhaps the reason why I identify with the movie a lot. I love the way how tradition and religion is illustrated and introduced to people unaware of Judaism. I definitely believe the writer went through a very profound research to gather the story well. Yibbum and Halitzah is mentioned in the Torah (Deuteronomy 25:5-10) and truly is no longer practiced, but the Halitzah ceremony until now exist; Like the Pidyon haben (redemption of the first born son) and many other symbolic ceremonies that are part of the Jewish culture, religion and tradition. I am glad the movie is around for all of the reason above, I loved it so much that I expended one week every night watching it.

Jake is a Washington, D.C., physician who has been accepted into a fellowship program. He is engaged to Carol, who he met at the hospital when they were having lunch at the same time. Carol is pretty and seems to work at the hospital, but I'm not sure what she does.Jake, who grew up Jewish but is no longer observant, dreams that he sees his brother Benjamin, a rabbi who he has not kept in touch with, telling him everything is now all right between them. They used to be close, as shown in flashbacks. Jake then finds out Benjamin is deceased.Jake goes to Brooklyn to attend the funeral. He finds out that he obligated by scripture (Deuteronomy 25:5) to marry Benjamin's widow Leah. Neither Jake nor Leah wants to do this, but a halizah ceremony is required to release Jake from his obligation. The words Jake is forced to say would require him to denounce his brother, which he can't do. So he goes through with a sham marriage and moves Leah into his very masculine Georgetown apartment, giving her the other bedroom. The two rarely see each other.Still, you can imagine how this makes Carol feel. Meanwhile, there is an additional complication: the mothers of Jake and Leah don't know the marriage is fake. So they have to go through the motions to keep up the charade.Leah wanted to leave Brooklyn anyway; she wants to go to college and investigates the possibility. Very devout and conservative, she also seeks out a place of worship. The one she finds is very different from the one in Brooklyn; instead of lots of men with black hats and beards, this temple has a female rabbi.The "marriage" appears unlikely to succeed. But wait: why does this movie have the title that it does? Maybe there is hope after all.The leading actors in this movie all do a good job. Lauren Ambrose is pleasant enough, and she is attractive but very plain, though she has beautiful hair (it's actually a wig). I especially liked Ricki Lake as the female rabbi who helps Leah find answers in a new community of faith. Susie Essman plays Leah's mother as abrasive (but in New York City, that's actually love) and intolerant (would an on screen Jewish mother be anything else?). Mercedes Ruehl does an especially fine job as Jake's mother.It is rare to see this much detail about the Jewish faith. Most movies and TV series show Jewish people as non-observant or, where they are faithful, we often don't see the details of what is required of them. The Brooklyn Jews in this movie are the most conservative Jews I have ever seen portrayed. And yet the female rabbi teaches Leah a lot about how all the requirements may not be necessary. Leah and Jake have a lot to teach each other as well.It was worthy of the name "Hallmark Hall of Fame".

In the orthodox Jewish faith, when a man dies, the wife is supposed to marry his single brother, if there is any. In order to avoid such a marriage, there is a nasty ritual that the man and woman has to go through.This is the case in "Loving Leah." The film is somewhat unrealistic. An orthodox woman would not just take up with her brother-in-law as the film seems to suggest. When he calls her on Friday night, he should have realized that she'd never answer the phone and as for the sleeping arrangements made with the arrival of her mother, forget it, it doesn't happen like that. In addition, the prospective mother-in-law would never have a change to a more modern attitude in invoking the Lord's name for justification.All of the above being said, the movie is still a very interesting one and becomes extremely poignant at the end as the unveiling of the stone for the deceased draws near.The film tries to succeed in attempting to reconcile assimilation with accommodation here. Sociologists would have an absolute ball with this film.The film is still quite memorable and open to a lot of discussion. Some people may need to see it twice for a better understanding.