Jason goes to Jewfest South--Wednesday, Nov 3

One film last night at the Camera 7, NORA'S WILL. An alternately slapstick comedy and touching drama about a death in the family. Specifically, the death of the matriarch Nora, married for 30 years, divorced for 20, and committed suicide on Passover Eve. But she was (according to her ex-husband Jose) the ultimate manipulator, as the fully set table and refrigerator full of food with instructions would attest to. Jose arrives and starts making passive-aggressive plans for the funeral--complete with calling a Catholic cemetery (oh yeah, I figures it goes without saying since I saw it at a Jewish film festival, but the family is Jewish) for the burial and ordering a sausage and cheese pizza for dinner. This doesn't sit well with the rabbi, or his son, or the rest of the family and odd characters who start showing up. And things just get worse when Jose discovers a photograph that sheds new light on their past. The whole time--based on Jose's complaints--you can feel Nora manipulating events for her own purposes. But when every Jewish cemetery in town refuses to bury a suicide within the cemetery grounds (they have a lot put aside for suicides and criminals), you get the idea that maybe her grand plan was to give her warring family a common cause to rally around.

Running Time: 92 minutes

My Total Minutes: 214,460