Suzie Gold is certainly a niche film, the antics of a typical upper middle class Jewish family in Great Britain, but could just as well have been cast in the United States, or any country in Europe. Suzie Gold is certainly cliché, the overbearing Jewish mother, the passive Jewish father, the Jewish Princess daughter, and the whole social climbing Jewish social scene. The dialog was priceless, and very very accurate for that Jewish social group. The attitude towards the Jewish religion, that is, stylish, flexible, and comical, even though pretty much true to life, still bordered on kitsch. Summer Phoenix, not being Jewish, still did a great job in what was probably a very difficult role. The only trouble was that being a shiksa, she tended to act like one. I could personally relate to this film, the characters were really taken from real life, the situations were entirely believable, and conversations were the sort I have actually been involved in. And the dilemmas, that is, a younger daughter marrying before her desperate older sister, intermarriage, the whole Jewish mother shtick, the Jewish mother in law shtick, the Jewish daughter as princess, and the Jewish son as prince, they all rang very true, sadly in the case of the character of Anthony. I do doubt that non Jews would find this movie to be very entertaining, except in an exotic sense, or as a short look into a reality of a small part of the sometimes odd Jewish world. But then I felt that this was a movie made by Jews and for Jews, thus it would be understood and be entertaining only for Jews, and only for those Jews who can stand outside our own social, religious, communal, and ethnic scene, and laugh at and cry at our own foibles. I felt that Suzie Gold was overall a very sweet film.
Review of Suzie Gold
