Keeping the faith

Herald Rating: * * *

Cast: Ben Stiller, Edward Norton, Jenna Elfman

Director: Edward Norton

Rating: M (sexual references)

Running Time: 100 minutes

Opens: Now showing, Village, Hoyts, Berkeley cinemas

Review: Russell Baillie

Someone up there obviously likes Edward Norton. So much so, it seems, that when the very fine screen actor invoked the age-old moviebiz prayer, "What I'd really like to do is direct," he seems to have been blessed.

Blessed because probably God only knows quite who the audience might be for his directorial debut.

Anyway, it's a sweet, smart and very New York romantic comedy about a progressive rabbi (Stiller), and an equally go-ahead catholic priest (Norton) and how their mutual friendship and respective faiths are tested when they both fall for corporate wonderwoman (Elfman), who was a tomboy friend in their younger days until her family shifted to California.

Anyone expecting the edginess that Norton has displayed in past roles is going to be well perplexed. As Father Brian Finn, Norton does his best Jimmy Stewart, while there's something radiantly Grace Kelly-like about Elfman which makes up for her unbelievability as a Wall Street mover and shaker.

As for Stiller, he's sort of the Woody Allen of the piece - not only is his synagogue expecting him to marry someone in his congregation to help his career, he's got a Jewish mother (Anne Bancroft) who's permanently in match-making mode.

But things get complicated between Stiller's Rabbi Schram and Anna, both telling themselves it's just a fling. Meanwhile, Brian, unaware of their affair, keeps telling himself he's not in love with Anna and that his faith isn't being tested.

Everybody is, of course, deluding themselves and watching the trio wrestle with their dilemmas gives this a gentle emotional pull beneath the sermons and the wisecracks.

Yes, it's guilty of the sins of contrivance and convolution and attempting easy answers to big questions about religion in the modern world and all that.

But - perhaps care of Norton - it's got a brain, something that's usually surplus to requirements in the romantic comedy genre. A guilty pleasure.