Cine las Americas Previews

My Mexican Shivah (Morirse Está en Hebreo)

Mexican-Jewish comedies are as rare as leavened bread in the Sinai, and thus the very existence of My Mexican Shivah is as much a cause for wonderment and head-scratching as was the burning bush or, barring that, the introduction of a mariachi band into World of Our Fathers. The petty, interfamilial squabbles that descend like a series of seriocomic plagues following the death of boisterous paterfamilias Moishe (Klainer) – who died while dancing the hora, no less – make old Abraham’s daily grind look tame in comparison. The weeklong Jewish mourning ritual of sitting shivah is fodder here for both spiritual and earthbound redemption, with Moishe’s mishpocha – his children, his shiksa mistress, and in particular, his grandson Nicholás (Savinni), a former libertine-fugitive who returns from the promised land a full-fledged Hasid – primed for the sort of giddy, existential free-for-all Ben Stiller can only dream of. Springall avoids the pitfalls of the genre, such as it is (El Mariachis en los Sephardim?), via a vitally mordant and distinctly Latin touch: the inclusion of a pair of magical-realistic angels, Aleph and Bet (Cimet, Kerlow), who kibitz and tally the deceased’s just reward. So one of the lost tribes of Israel landed deep in the heart of mi corazón … who nu? – Marc Savlov

This article appears in April 11 • 2008.