>Ed Asner. Multiple Emmy winner. Leader of the Screen Actors’ Guild (SAG) during their 1980 strike for a better, more equitable contract.
In this film, released the year before his death at age 91, Ed Asner plays an aging Jewish widower and Holocaust survivor living in Los Angeles. One day, as he’s visiting his wife’s grave in a Jewish cemetery, he sees a teenage girl under a swastika-emblazoned jacket sleeping on the grass.
Casey (Margot Josefsohn – “Foursome”) is a disillusioned, estranged, generally ignorant, hardened creature of the streets. She has come from an intolerable relationship with her mother and her mother’s string of brutal, selfish boyfriends back in Ohio to live with her father and his new family in LA. But the meeting never happens and she is alone and without resources when Samuel (Asner) comes upon her. He attempts to befriend her and, despite her initial belief that he is only after her body (as reflected in so many of her earlier experiences) she accepts food and a place to sleep in his apartment.
Slowly, she begins to learn that not everyone in this world is out for themselves alone. Samuel’s generosity, understanding and gentle guidance begins to make a change in her. She learns of his suffering during the holocaust, the loss of his twin daughters, and the deep hatred for the world that he harbored for years. She also begins to learn the wisdom that is the product of his own life experiences and the guidance of his late wife.
There is, of course, much more to this tender story of a young life on the rocks being rescued by the care of another human being. The story is, at times, maudlin, and Casey’s transformation is perhaps a bit too fast, but there are also the inevitable regressions, driven by all too real rejections many of us face in our daily lives. Jaded Casey harbors fears and a lack of self worth. At one point, Samuel tells her that she must imagine a Tiger living inside her – and that we can have a fierce force within us that helps us conquer, or at least confront, our fears.
Acting, especially by the principals, is excellent. The dialogue, informed by the input of many religious and secular teachers in Los Angeles, rings true to both the mean streets and to the human souls trying to reach out to each other, sometimes gropingly, sometimes with the wisdom of age and experience. Prominent in the closing credits is a list of these wise people who were consulted in the making of the film.
There is a lot of warmth and humanity here, if you can scratch through the casual brutality, sexual gratification for sale, and the vulgarity of racism and disillusionment. Samuel can, and through his example, perhaps Casey will, too.
Credits
Director: Rafal Zielinski
Writer: Gina Wendkos
Producer: Rafal Zielinski
Cinematographer: Helge Gerull
Editor: Lea Vrabelova
Music: Mark Tschanz
Cast
Samuel: Ed Asner
Casey: Margot Josefsohn
Tony: Diego Josef
Marge: Erica Puccininni
Ted: Taylor Nichols
Runtime: One hour, 38 minutes
Availability: Numerous streaming services now
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