Weekly Kibbitz
A multi-generational Jewish family takes
center stage in this upcoming fi lm,
featuring an all-star cast
kids.” Hopkins’ character encourages Paul to stand
up for his friend.

“You’re gonna be a mensch, OK?” he says.

Strong’s character uses another choice (see: pro-
fane) Yiddish word in one scene to describe Reagan,
who is shown winning the 1980 presidential election.

Gray — whose well-known fi lms include “We Own
the Night,” “The Immigrant” and “Ad Astra” — grew
up in Flushing, Queens, to Ukrainian-Jewish immi-
grant parents. His fi rst feature “Little Odessa” is set
in Brighton Beach, a Brooklyn neighborhood with a
large population of Jewish immigrants from the for-
mer Soviet Union.

The fi lm, which hits theaters Nov. 11, has earned rave
reviews at international festivals, including Cannes in
May. Some see it as an early Oscar favorite.

Strong’s father is Jewish and Hathaway is married
to a Jewish husband, but none of the stars identify as
Jewish. The castings come at a time when many are
questioning whether non-Jews should play Jewish
characters on-screen.

Anthony Hopkins
Wikipedia Commons
H ow often do viewers get to see Anthony Hopkins
use the word “mensch”?
The two-time Oscar winner (who is not Jewish)
plays a Jewish immigrant who escaped the Holocaust
in acclaimed director James Gray’s autobiographical
upcoming fi lm “Armageddon Time.”
Others included in Hopkins’ on-screen family:
fellow Oscar-winner and superstar Anne Hathaway,
and Emmy-winner Jeremy Strong, known for his
seething lead performance on HBO’s “Succession.”
The pair play Irving and Esther Graff , a Jewish
couple raising two sons in Queens in the 1980s
at the beginning of the Reagan era. Politics and
race are central themes, and the Graff s’ son
Paul, played by Banks Repeta, is shown in the
trailer being forbidden by his mother from seeing
his friend Johnny, played by Jaylin Webb, who
is Black.

Another scene shows Paul confi ding in his grand-
father (Hopkins) about the way he feels when kids
at his new school say “bad words against the Black
Anne Hathaway
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