Did you hear the one about Samuel (Ed Asner), the Holocaust survivor who gave shelter to straight-off-the-farm Holocaust denier Casey (Margot Josefsohn)? She’s the homeless teen he found dozing in a Jewish cemetery, a black leather jacket with a swastika painted across the back acting as her blanket. The jacket is the white power elephant in the room. We’re asked to believe that Casey spent four months, half the film’s running time, walking the streets of Los Angeles with a swastika on display and no one on either side called her out for it, least of all her farther or her boss at the massage parlor where the teenager found a flourishing career in wanker management. (Better providing happy endings than a life in prostitution and the loss of her virginity it would necessitate.) The script by Gina Wendkos (The Princess Diaries, Coyote Ugly) is preachy by any choir’s standards, an R-rated after school special steeped in naivete. There’s even a “Harold and maudlin” moment when Wendkos equates the serial number on Samuel’s chest with the “F*** You” freshly inked across Casey’s belly. No one could have played the part of Samuel any better than Ed Asner. And one can understand why after seeing hundreds of actresses, the producers chose newcomer Josefsohn to star. With its heart firmly planted in the right place, the film never finds the gritty tone needed to balance the discourse. Rafal Zielinski directs. (2020) — Scott Marks
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