“Dough” – Don’t spend too much [MOVIE REVIEW]
“Dough” starring Jonathan Pryce and Jerome Holder.
“Dough,” a well-intentioned, if trite and predictable, film directed by John Goldschmidt with a script by Jehudah Yez Freedman and Jonathan Benson, benefits from an excellent cast led by Jonathan Pryce and the charismatic young Jerome Holder.
Nat Dayan (Pryce), still mourning the passing of his wife, is a bitter kosher baker in a transitional neighborhood. Although the sign above the door says “Dayan and Son,” it refers to Nat and his father. Nat’s son Steven is a successful lawyer who would like nothing better if his father sold his failing business and moved on with his life. Nat, not one to roll with the times, is clinging to his traditions, his life and his business. When his apprentice takes a job next door working for Nat’s arch rival, grocery story magnate Sam Cotton, he must find a new helper or shutter the bakery.
Ayyash, a devout Muslim refugee from Rwanda, living with his mother Safa, would like nothing better than to deal drugs for Victor, the local drug kingpin, recognizing that it would be a shortcut to earning the money that he and his mother need to move out of their dismal apartment. Victor, however, will only hire workers who already have other jobs that would provide cover for their less legal activities. When Safa, Nat’s cleaning lady, learns of the open apprenticeship at the bakery, she entreats Nat to hire her son on a trial basis. The newly employed Ayyash becomes not only an apprentice baker but also Victor’s newest distributor of high grade marijuana, selling it as part of “extra poppy seed” bagel orders. The tension between the devout Muslim and Orthodox Jew is palpable and runs higher the day that the police pay Ayyash a visit at the bakery. Panicked, Ayyash accidentally drops his stash in the bread dough and a popular new product is born.
The appeal of this film should be in the growing relationship between the Jew and the Muslim, and to a certain extent it is, in large part because of the skill of the exceptional Holder who imbues his conflicted character with multiple layers of dimension and depth. Unfortunately the writers never elevate the story beyond pat stereotype and, with the collusion of the director, have created wooden stock characters, which include Pryce, and situations that lack tension and focus because of their predictability. Entirely wasted in the film are the usually excellent Pauline Collins playing a horny widow who owns the building housing the bakery and Philip Davis playing the cartoon villain of Sam Cotton who wants to destroy the bakery. Even Ian Hart, drug kingpin Victor, is given more nuance than Davis.
Perhaps “Dough” could be judged less harshly if it were not so derivative. The theme of religious disparates coming to better understand one another is familiar ground. While Goldschmidt, Freedman and Benson endeavored to create a comedy or, at best, a dramedy, too many developmental elements are missing to succeed in either category.
For a better understanding of the genre, it would be more satisfying to revisit several films from the past that explore this territory in more depth with better character development and less obvious predictability. Among the recommended films would be Moshé Mizrahi’s 1977 Oscar winner “Madame Rosa”; “The Two of Us,” Claude Berri’s directorial debut in 1967; Eran Kolirin’s “The Band’s Visit;” and of course “The Intouchables,” by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano from 2012.
Opening Friday April 29 at the Laemmle Royal, Pasadena Playhouse 7 and Encino Town Center 5