Imperfect sense of community
A gay Jewish teen struggles for acceptance in the uneven ‘Minyan.’
Titled after a tenet in Judaism that demands the presence of at least 10 males for public prayer and other religious practices, the queer coming-of-age drama “Minyan” explores the interlocked spiritual and social dynamics of Brighton Beach’s Eastern European Jewish population in the mid-1980s with tonal and visual solemnity.
Drowning a secret with vodka stolen from his Russian mother’s supply, gentle teenager David (Samuel H. Levine, who starred in “The Inheritance” on Broadway) no longer fits in at his traditional yeshiva school. When the boy helps his grandfather (Ron Rifkin) secure housing, his horizons broaden in the embrace of other men who love men: one of kinship with two elderly widowers who’ve made a life together and another of sexual initiation with stoic bartender Bruno (Alex Hurt).
Starting too many narrative threads at once, writerdirector Eric Steel and cowriter Daniel Pearle (adapting from the short story by David Bezmozgis) load David’s self-discovery with the lingering trauma of the Holocaust, the AIDS epidemic, James Baldwin’s legacy and an underlying crisis of faith, overwhelming the film’s thematic bandwidth.
Steel shows acute competency for cinematic emotional details when charged images replace historical references in the way of stolen glances or the implications of a pair of toothbrushes in a shared household or how an affection starved David maneuvers his forbidden orientation somewhere between caution and abandon.
From an aesthetic standpoint, “Minyan” is an exquisitely realized fiction debut (Steel has directed documentaries) blessed with the muted colors of Lucio Seixas’ production design, captured in Ole Bratt Birkeland’s graceful cinematography, that soak the film in the melancholia of a dignified humbleness, plus a piercingly jazzy score that vibrates with eerie holiness.
With its numerous supporting characters, many unfortunately embodied through mannered acting, Steel’s picture spins on Levine’s superb turn of tender sensuality and suppressed rage seeking catharsis in the body of another.
Amid the somberness, the filmmaker offers David an unspoken acceptance, an imperfect sense of community where others like him try to reconcile their personal truth with their divine beliefs.
For all the accumulation of subplots, “Minyan” potently states that the suffering garnered in their collective past and current individual woes isn’t supposed to be carried alone.