Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbruch’ on Netflix, a Comedy in Which a Jewish Man Battles His Overbearing Mother

If you think Netflix movie The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbruch is a mouthful of a title, let it be known that its original title was Wolkenbruch’s Wondrous Journey Into the Arms of a Shiksa. (More on the definition of “shiksa” in a minute.) The Swiss comedy debuted at the 2018 Zurich Film Festival, and now enjoys its international streaming debut. It’s also Switzerland’s official submission for Oscar’s best international film category. Good luck with that!

THE AWAKENING OF MOTTI WOLKENBRUCH: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Motti (Joel Basman) is Jewish. His mother is Jewish, his father is Jewish, his brothers married Jewish women, he buys his glasses from a Jewish optometrist, everyone in the Jewish community buys a Toyota Previa from the local Jewish car salesman, etc. He essentially does three things: he takes college economics courses, works for his father’s insurance company (which sells policies to Jews, one assumes) and suppresses the urge to push his mother in front of a bus.

That last one is conjecture, but it feels like a safe assumption. It’s how most of us would handle the situation, which is oppressive and insane. Mame (Inge Maux) is making him run the Jewish matchmaking gauntlet, known as the Shidduch in Yiddish. Her method: introduce him to a young Jewish woman who wouldn’t dare wear long pants ever, then spy on him from across the way, hoping for the best, but assuming he’s striking out. She barges in on him while he showers. She insults him when he shaves his beard, buys glasses from a non-Jewish retailer and wears jeans. Not JEANNNNNNNS! She hyperventilates over his every move. Motti’s dad, Tate (Udo Samel), just stands by and shrugs. I know it’s bad karma to say this, but you’ll wish for Mame’s expeditious doom. An aneurysm, a wildebeest stampede, a falling moon rock, anything. But she has the traditions of a millennia-old institution enabling her madness.

There are three other women key to Motti’s story. Michal (Lena Kalisch) is one of his mother’s selections, but she too is worn down to a nub by the Shidduch ritual; they agree to tell their respective oppressors that they hit it off, just so they can have some breathing room. Laura (Noemie Schmidt) is Motti’s flirtatious classmate; she’s a — GASP — shiksa, or non-Jewish woman, so to Mame, she may as well be a chimpanzee or a Martian. And when the rabbi suggests Motti find a bride in Israel, he meets Jael (Meytal Gal), who’s down for no more than testing the veracity of her mattress springs; good for him, I say. Will any of these work out? Will Motti find a way to define himself outside the restrictions of his faith? Will we ever develop a scintilla of empathy for Mame?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbruch is all the childhood flashback scenes from Annie Hall, but broadened, flattened and pieced together to feature-length. It shares many canned-ethnic-comedy traits with the likes of My Big Fat Greek Wedding and the like.

Performance Worth Watching: Basman is a sturdy anchor for the movie, which has no grandiose ambitions for exploring his character beyond the typical formulas.

Memorable Dialogue: Mame doesn’t like the rabbi’s advice:

“We’ll find another community!” she threatens.

“Won’t make any difference. It’s the same god,” the rabbi replies.

Sex and Skin: A couple of relatively tame sex scenes, including what appears to be Motti’s PG-13 deflowering.

Our Take: Pretty much every scene is a product of a ruthlessly cliched dramatic catalyst. Guess what that is. Right. The mother character is a relentless irritant, the hyperbolic antagonist screaming in the face of the empathetic hero. Nobody likes a bully, especially one who fulfills the stereotype of the endlessly controlling, haranguing Jewish mother. It’s hard to enjoy the nicely modulated scenes between Motti and his father and the charming earnestness of his interactions with Laura when they’d be rendered dramatically moot without the relentless phoniness of the Mame character, who’s as stubborn as a puke stain on the rug, and almost as pleasant.

The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbruch aims to be a warm, lightweight, oy!-my-family comedy, but never transcends the shibboleth of its villain. The final act is herky-jerky and contrived, with characters making out-of-the-blue decisions guided by the machinations of the plot. The movie has no interest in tidy conclusions, and I’ll give it that; the final shot is poetic as well. But such last-minute goodwill is undermined by a mid-credits sequence in which Mame is allowed to reprise one of the most annoying scenes from earlier in the film. Screw that.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Final score: two funny scenes, five or six nicely earnest scenes, 2,632 scenes of Mame’s quasi-comedic assaults. These are not official numbers. But sometimes perception is more powerful than truth.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbruch on Netflix