Yiddish Theater: A Love Story Reviews
New York Magazine
Top CriticIntriguing and entertaining despite some rough edges, Dan Katzir's documentary profits immeasurably from the ancient Spaisman's genuine charisma.
If you end up kvelling for these performers, the doc has served its purpose.
About.com
The Yiddish Theater: A Love Story is as charming, humorous, convincing, tenacious and relevant as its wonderful leading lady.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4.5/5
JWR
However, whether by design or happy coincidence, several more universal truths lurk tantalizingly in the upper balcony and lift this production from the specific to the universal.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4.5/5
Quad City Times (Davenport, IA)
Only a schmuck wouldn't love this movie.
Full Review | Original Score: 4/4
Los Angeles CityBeat
... an uneven but ultimately charming %u2013 and sad %u2013 look at the disappearance of a centuries-old cultural tradition whose impact on our own culture has been inestimable.
Given its origins, it's not surprising that Yiddish Theater: A Love Story has a catch-as-catch-can feeling to it. But nothing can take away from the flavor of being caught up in the battles and dreams of a formidable group of people.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Los Angeles Daily News
Yiddish Theater is a melancholy work, as well it should be, but it's also almost giddy much of the time with the delight of discovery, preservation and nostalgia.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Although the film's highly personal approach ultimately pays off in terms of heartfelt emotion -- particularly at its bittersweet conclusion -- it's hard not to wish that its focus was not quite so narrow.
Film Journal International
When you see all of these octogenarians struggling through the snow and perilous ice to make it to their show, you really see what true courage and artistic commitment are all about.
rec.arts.movies.reviews
Charming documentary on the struggle to keep Yiddish theater alive against all odds, including assimilated Jews' shame at a language associated with victimhood.
Slant Magazine
The film's candid personalities provide plenty of memorably off-the-cuff moments.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
TV Guide's Movie Guide
Interviews with aging caretakers of the Yiddish Theater are vivid windows into a bygone world, and Spaisman herself, a feisty firebrand whose accent is so strong Katzir supplied subtitles, is a formidable personality.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Filmed in real time during the freezing winter of 2000, Yiddish Theater: A Love Story tracks eight days in the failing life of the Yiddish Public Theater.
| Original Score: 3.5/5
Film Threat
Dan Katzir's film is, in many ways, an elegy to the Yiddish theater.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
rec.arts.movies.reviews
We can only hope that the film draws audiences larger today than those we see drawn by the Folksbeine.
Full Review
| Original Score: 7/10
Boxoffice Magazine
Katzir's documentary is on the cusp of posing worthy questions about American assimilation and cultural evolution, but it'd rather appeal to guilt and sympathy for art that we never get to feel.
Its extremely narrow focus on the death throes of an art form, rather than the art itself, limits its appeal.
