Back in the 1920s, a comedy called “Abie’s Irish Rose,” about a Jewish boy married to a Catholic girl and the havoc that plays among their families, ran for more than five years on Broadway in spite of terrible reviews. (“People laugh at this every night, which explains why democracy can never be a success,” wrote Robert Benchley, then a Life magazine theater critic.)
In 1972, CBS revived this concept as “Bridget Loves Bernie,” about a Jewish boy married to a Catholic girl, etc., etc., whose intermarriage theme occasioned some controversy, though stars David Birney and Meredith Baxter later wed in real life.
And now, after a suitable cooling-down period, comes “Nobody Wants This,” arriving Thursday on Netflix — a brave title — with Kristen Bell as the nice Gentile girl (she’s not religious) and Adam Brody as the nice Jewish boy (a rabbi, yet). As in the earlier iterations, it is your job to root for them, and you will not find it hard to, so likable and attractive are they both, and so loudly does the series cry “rom-com!” Bell, of course, is America’s sweetheart with a bit of attitude, and Brody has an easy way that makes his every utterance seem arrived at in the moment in spite of the fact that he is starring in something of a contraption.
To begin: Noah abruptly breaks it off with his fiancee, Rebecca (Emily Arlook), after he finds her wearing the engagement ring he kept in a locked drawer and hadn’t actually given her yet. Joanne is in the cycle of bad dates rom-com heroines must endure before the good relationship comes along. At a party thrown by a mutual friend, they flirt and banter and, after some clearing of the decks, they get together and, beating back fearfulness, mostly stay together.
It’s bouncy and pleasant, with likable — or eventually likable — characters, some of whom will present problems for the couple along the way. But the stones in their path are for the most part easily kicked aside, and once the relationship is established, there’s no real concern — until near the end, when serious questions must be faced — that things won’t work out. Noah and Joanne are unselfish people whose constitutional truthfulness robs the series of one of situation comedy’s main engines — the lie — for the better. Indeed, more tension is generated by wondering whether the writing will run down predictable paths than what will become of the lovers. It does a little, but not quite as much as one might expect, which is rather refreshing.
As in most every romantic comedy since the world began, they are attended by quirky friends and relatives. Noah has a brother, Sasha (Timothy Simons, from “Veep”), a cheerful lug with little ambition, a wife, Esther (Jackie Tohn) and a daughter, Miriam (Shiloh Bearman), whose bat mitzvah will play a climactic role; Joanne has a divorced sister, Morgan (Justine Lupe, from “Succession”), “my best friend and my worst enemy,” with whom she affectionately bickers. Surreptitiously bonding over being the “loser siblings,” Sasha and Morgan get to be funny without the burden of carrying the central story. I would happily watch the two of them in their own show.
Joanne and Morgan share a popular home-recorded podcast, also called “Nobody Wants This,” in which they talk about sex, but not, as Joanne likes to insist, only about sex — “I just want them to feel empowered,” she says of their listeners. “It’s textbook fourth-wave feminism.” They’re on the verge of a deal with Spotify and making them as rich as Noah’s family — though, like everyone here, they are apparently doing quite well already. (Series creator Erin Foster shares a podcast with her sister Sara, “The World’s First Podcast.”)
There are parents, naturally, whose temperaments must vary widely for maximum contrast and humor. Hers are whimsical and separated, a gay dad (Michael Hitchcock) and a mother (Stephanie Faracy) who has gone whole hog into spiritual practices and experiments. His, who live in a giant Sherman Oaks McMansion, are long-married immigrants — a father (Paul Ben-Victor) who is understanding and a mother (Tovah Feldshuh) who is not. It’s she who cries “shiksa!” on seeing Joanne with Noah at temple. (“Technically it’s a Jewish insult that means you’re impure and detestable, but these days it just means that you’re a hot, blond non-Jew,” Noah explains. “That’s actually a perfect description of me,” replies Joanne.)
All the resistance, beyond Morgan habitually giving her sister a hard time (“You’re sort of a bad person, relative to a man of God … I could see you with a cult leader.”), comes from Noah’s more insular world — it seems a little heavy-handed at times, but as a secular Jew married to a lapsed Catholic, I don’t run in those circles. So I don’t know.
(Let me say, though, that you can’t judge a shiksa by her cover. Sarah Michelle Gellar, Lauren Bacall, Tina Louise, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Lisa Kudrow, Peggy Lipton — all Jewish. Also, Joanne doesn’t know what “shalom” means? And you might like to know, because I looked it up, that rabbis, depending on the denomination, do marry outside the faith.)
There has always been plenty of Jewishness in screen culture, from the Marx Brothers to Mel Brooks, from Sid Caesar to “Seinfeld” to “Broad City,” “Brooklyn Bridge” to “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” The first talking picture, “The Jazz Singer,” starred Al Jolson as a cantor’s son who wanted to go pop. Yet historically it’s been more often implied than specific. (I am always gratified when a bit of Yiddish drops into dialogue.) That religion, or lack of it, enters into the story in a fairly substantial way, makes “Nobody Wants This” a member of a relatively small club, setting it apart from most romantic comedies — though of course the couple-from-different-worlds angle is a pillar of the form, a cornerstone of the culture, which in itself knows no race, creed or religion. We’re suckers for that stuff. “Abie’s Irish Rose” played 2,327 performances.
