DONNY’S BAR MITZVAH, THE most insane, crazy, wild, over-the-top bar mitzvah you will ever experience. Courtesy of Circle Collective.Generally, PJFM’s “Revisiting” blog posts revolve around a classic or much older, underappreciated Jewish film. I’m making an exception for Donny’s Bar Mitzvah, a small film that premiered online early last year when most people still weren’t going to the movies. No matter what you think about this comedy, I think it’s worth exploring. This movie is so out there, raunchy, over-the-top and shockingly ridiculous that I think it deserves a deeper inspection. It didn’t seem to premiere at any film festivals, let alone Jewish ones, and if you watch 10 minutes of the movie, I think you may know why. Its irrelevant, raunchy humor knows no boundaries. You will laugh or immediately turn off this film, but whatever you think, I think Donny’s Bar Mitzvah is some kind of miracle, a reminder that film is still alive, and filmmakers will forever have the capacity to make their own art.
Let me just get heavy for a second and briefly reminisce about the past two years. We know that cinema continues to be on the line. Yes, the box office has made a lot more this year, thanks to Top Gun: Maverick, which – and this is crazy – I still haven’t seen, but there are still movies going right to TV when they should be seen in theaters. There are still some incredible indies out there that spend one week in a theater and then get put On Demand. There are films that should be seen on the big screen only, but distributors put them on a streaming platform because they know audience turnout is still low. You may have even read the news the other day that Cineworld, which owns Regal Cinemas, has filed for bankruptcy. Basically, getting a film distributed post-2019 is supremely difficult, and I’m not sure if it will ever be the same.
One truth, however, is certain: film is not dead, and it will NEVER be dead. The amount of people I used to hear say the opposite in 2020 and 2021 is just abysmal. There are so many challenges in this COVID world, but filmmakers aren’t giving up. Jonathan Kaufman, the writer and director of Donny’s Bar Mitzvah, is an example of someone who has powered through the myths of cinema’s demise and demonstrated the freedom of filmmaking. His film may positively disgust you, but that’s not the point. Upon closer viewing, the movie’s recklessness reaffirms our fight to keep cinema moving forward. COVID has put us in a schlump, and Donny’s Bar Mitzvah, no matter how insane it is, reminds us that movies are still alive. People are still out there making the movies they want, and no pandemic will ever stop them.
“My comedy style is always a bit off the wall and different and risqué,” Kaufman tells LRM Online in an interview. “I miss the absurdity and the crazy comedies. I feel like I haven’t seen really hard-hitting, wacky, ridiculous comedies in a really long time. I’m just trying to restore the laughs to the silver screen.”
Donny’s Bar Mitzvah is Kaufman’s first feature film, and hard-hitting, wacky, and ridiculous it indeed is. The director, who is Jewish himself, has had the idea to make a bar mitzvah comedy since he was in high school. If you go on IMDB, the plot for the film simply reads, “Donny Drucker’s 1998 Bar Mitzvah VHS Tape.” No explanation, and in fact, there really isn’t an explanation needed for the movie. It’s set at the craziest bar mitzvah ever, a party where absolutely every character is vulgar, drunk, and high. There is neither a story nor character arcs or life lessons to learn from this film. Kaufman just wants to make you laugh.
Did I laugh myself? Well, not so much laughed as gasped for the entirety of its 79 minutes. EVERYTHING is over-the-top in Donny’s Bar Mitzvah. EVERYTHING. If a character throws a glass off-camera, the sound effect is over-the-top. There is sex. There is projectile vomiting. There is a birth. There is a shoot-out. There is a woman who jiggles her breasts for absolutely no reason in one shot. There is flatulence. The movie is essentially one gigantic, long, very R-rated SNL sketch, but exponentially racier. It is like an uncompromising masterpiece, a film unafraid to do what it wants. I’ve seen a lot of comedies in my life, but I have never seen one as extreme as this. And I’ve seen the Jackass movies. That’s saying a lot!
In the first shot of Donny’s Bar Mitzvah, we see a collection of VHS tapes, with the bar mitzvah in the middle. Besides it, there are tapes titled “Barney Porn” and “Donny’s Abortion”. We see an anonymous person practically slam the tape into a VHS player, as it keeps ejecting it, perhaps an ominous sign that we shouldn’t watch what we’re about to see…
The film plays and we are taken straight to the party. The date is November 4, 1998, and Donny (Steele Stebbins) is trying to get a family photograph at his bar mitzvah. It is madness. The photographer, who looks like the murderer from some B-movie horror flick, is grinning and constantly yelling, “CHEESE!” Donny’s parents are arguing, and his mother keeps throwing her husband’s appletinis to the ground. Donny’s dim-witted older brother, Bobby (John DeLuca), is taking off his shirt and flexing his abs. Their gothic sister, Michelle (Jessica Renee Russell), could not look more miserable. This sequence is sheer insanity, and everything only gets crazier and crazier and crazier.
Donny believes he is dating his school crush, Hannah (Isabelle Anaya), a guest at the party who was rumored to have been sexually pleasured in class the week prior during Bill Nye the Science Guy. His friends, all potty mouths, need to practice their dance routine for the party. Bobby is obsessed with female butts and tells his buddy, David (Radek Lord), that “the quickest way to a woman’s heart is actually directly up her…” No, I won’t say the word. I’m trying to keep this PG-13! David, on the other hand, is secretly gay, and inadvertently introduces himself to Michelle as her boyfriend. Danny Trejo also makes a cameo appearance as an undercover agent who assists with the emcee, Gerald (Jeremy Tardy), to find a “party pooper” who has infiltrated the event…
If you think I’m making this up, I swear I’m not. I could talk about some other scenes. There’s a recurring “joke” that Jews can’t dance. Is that a common Jewish joke? There is a “boofing” scene. (Do NOT Google what that is.) Every adult at the bar mitzvah does drugs, even the bubbes. There is an unplanned pregnancy that happens in less than an hour. There are hats with dildos on the front. There is…. dare I continue? I think you get the gist of Donny’s Bar Mitzvah by now.
More importantly, this is supposed to be a “found footage” comedy, but who’s filming it?! We never know. We never know a lot of why this movie is the way that it is, but does it need to? Can’t it just play with the medium of film and goof around? For that reason alone, I enjoyed Donny’s Bar Mitzvah. In a world where film is constantly being tested, it’s nice for a movie to demonstrate why we love the bizarreness of cinema so much.
Just know that you’ve been warned: this is one WILD movie.
Donny’s Bar Mitzvah is now streaming on Tubi.