Film

Claims to being a “true-ish story” notwithstanding, Sixty Six—inspired by its director’s own bar mitzvah experience—suggests the kind of movie that a British Barry Levinson would make, down to a replay of Avalon’s store fire. Mawkish in a way that’s meant to be endearing, the movie is framed as the memoirs of young Bernie (Sulkin), a North London near-teen who—with his bad teeth, ill-fitting glasses and asthma—has always dreamed of shining at “the Gone with the Wind of bar mitzvahs, the Cassius Clay of bar mitzvahs, the Jesus Christ of bar mitzvahs.” Little does he know that his ascent to manhood will fall on the day when Britain battles West Germany for the World Cup—prompting most of his guest list to R.S.V.P. in the negative.

Those who find the central situation more tragic than comic will have a tough time warming to Weiland’s strained attempts at whimsy, even if it’s admirable that he has the good grace to laugh at his former disappointment. (If the epilogue is indeed footage from Weiland’s actual bar mitzvah, perhaps the abandonment wasn’t as bad as all that.) To get to the uplift, you’ll have to endure the aphorisms of a caricatured blind rabbi (Katz) and the antics of Bernie’s ridiculously hapless dad (Marsan). Clearly, only a schmuck would take issue.