A passable story about growing up Jewish in 1950's Baltimore, "Liberty Heights" lacks any consistent dramatic storyline, but deals with a variety of issues in a sensitive manner.
Seen largely through the eyes of two Jewish teenagers (Van and Ben Kurtzman, played by Adrien Brody and Ben Foster) and their father Nate (Joe Montegna) the movie deals with the social changes just beginning in the early 1950's. Nate owns a burlesque house long after burlesque has gone out of fashion, and runs a numbers game on the side, constantly risking charges. Meanwhile, Van and Ben deal with anti-Semitic feelings (swimming pools with signs that read "NO JEWS, DOGS OR COLOREDS ALLOWED), but at the same time also deal with the changes brought about by integration, making friends and making tentative steps toward romances with those of other ethnic groups. We get a sense throughout of the difficulty that people must have felt in being asked to give up long-standing social conditioning, and we see (perhaps unrealistically) that the young people are far more willing to break out of these restrictions than their parents.
The movie isn't all that exciting, but does provide an interesting slice-of-life perspective that makes it worth watching. I rated it as a 5/10.
Seen largely through the eyes of two Jewish teenagers (Van and Ben Kurtzman, played by Adrien Brody and Ben Foster) and their father Nate (Joe Montegna) the movie deals with the social changes just beginning in the early 1950's. Nate owns a burlesque house long after burlesque has gone out of fashion, and runs a numbers game on the side, constantly risking charges. Meanwhile, Van and Ben deal with anti-Semitic feelings (swimming pools with signs that read "NO JEWS, DOGS OR COLOREDS ALLOWED), but at the same time also deal with the changes brought about by integration, making friends and making tentative steps toward romances with those of other ethnic groups. We get a sense throughout of the difficulty that people must have felt in being asked to give up long-standing social conditioning, and we see (perhaps unrealistically) that the young people are far more willing to break out of these restrictions than their parents.
The movie isn't all that exciting, but does provide an interesting slice-of-life perspective that makes it worth watching. I rated it as a 5/10.