The Chosen (1982)

Back in the mission field there was this one "eternal investigator" we used to visit who really wanted to show us the movie "The Chosen".  Now "eternal investigator" was a term we'd use to describe a person who wasn't a realistic baptismal prospect but liked visiting with the missionaries. This gentleman, whose name I've forgotten, wasn't in the best of health and didn't have a great memory so he would keep asking us if we wanted to watch this movie with him. It was against mission policy to do so so we had to keep declining, though it became something of a running joke between my companion and I, "The Chosen"?, hey isn't that about Hasidic Jews? Anyway 19 years later I finally got around to, and I think I see why he so wanted to show it to us, its about a friendship that bridges a religious divide (even though both central characters are Jewish).

Set in and around New York City in the mid 1940's "The Chosen" is an adaptation of the best selling 1967 novel of the same name by Jeremy Kagan. It is the story of Reuven Malter (Barry Miller) and Danny Saunders (Robby Benson, later the voice of 'The Beast' in "Beauty and the Beast"). Danny is a Hasidic Jew and Reuven a more assimilated one, they become friends after Danny lands Reuven in the hospital after hitting him in the eye with a baseball during an urban Jewish baseball league game in 1944. The two young people start out at odds but later become close friends despite their differences, and Danny's Rabbi father's opposition to the work of Reuven's father, an academic who later becomes a crusading Zionist.

One thing this movie put in focus that I was aware of, but didn't fully understand, was the fierce  opposition of some Hasidic Jews to the establishment of the state of Israel. This school of thought was rooted in the belief that it was the coming Messiah who would bring the Jews back to Palestine and reestablish their nationhood, any attempt at doing so without the Messiah being a sort of blasphemy. This movie has a wonderful story about  friendship and a growing understanding of differences in both good and bad times. The two leads are very good, but it's the performances of the fathers that truly impress.  Rod Stieger plays the Rabbi Saunders, he just great, arguably my favorite actor, but it was so good to see Maximiliam Schell again, he's not as prolific as Stieger but I've never seen him repeat a performance, he is kind of like Phillip Seymour Hoffman that way. Anyway I'd readily recommend "The Chosen". ***1/2