
Adam Brody as Noah and Kristen Bell as Joanne in a scene from “Nobody Wants This.”Saeed Adyani/Netflix
Okay. You’re bored with gunfire, dark streets, handsome young cops, handsome dead bodies, and beautiful people. I get it. Actually that’s the body of a whole other movie, “Wolfs,” with Brad Pitt and George Clooney, but that’s next week’s review.
Here, in creator Erin Foster’s new 10-part romantic comedy series, there is something that may be more comfortable.
“An agnostic sex podcaster (Kristen Bell) and a newly handsome, bearded and very single rabbi (Adam Brody) fall in love (of course) and soon discover that their growing relationship will run afoul of (of course) and survive their very different lives (incredibly different) and meddling families.” Do you think?
The “sex podcaster,” a bright, beautiful blonde “shiksa” (Kristen) and her sister Morgan, a slightly older beautiful blonde (Justine Lupe) put together a hot new (they hope) podcast radio show for young couples in Los Angeles, even though we know that girls who look like Kristen Bell don’t listen to podcasts.
Together they go to a dinner party where Joanne (Kristen) spots the young rabbi Noah (Adam Brody with a beard and tasteful yarmulke) and both get sparkles in their eyes and fiery loins.
Wasn’t the old joke “A rabbi walks into a bar and …”?
As a former resident of the City of Angels, I know that not all irreligious L.A. girls look like cotton candy on a stick, just a couple thousand, and rabbis aren’t all old or middle-aged snorers. I knew a rabbi who looked like George Clooney.
And I’m shocked, shocked mind you, to find that this rabbi looks and acts like, well, like Adam Brody. He’s cute and funny and fresh from breaking up with his very Jewish girlfriend, Rebecca.
What’s more he has a Jewish mama, in the shape of Tovah Feldshuh, who has Jewish mamas so down pat that when directors need a Jewish mother, they speed dial Tovah’s iPhone immediately.
Tovah is a wonderful actor, but here she is presented as stock character SNL Jewish mother.
Paul Ben-Victor plays Ilan, the rabbi’s calmer father. He used to play gangsters. Timothy Simons, the 8-foot-tall comic from “Veep,” plays Sasha, the perfect goofy brother who flirts with every non-Jewish girl in L.A.
Okay, it’s Saturday night and you want everyone to be cute and cuddly. You got ’em here.
I cannot give anything away beyond the first chapter, or reveal the outcome of course. As I was drawn to something light and funny, I was completely happy and skated through all 10 segments in two nights.
Foster has all the comic touches of a pro, and obviously based her characters on friends.
My opinion? I would have cast a much younger Amy Ryan as Joanne and kept Brody as the rabbi.
I must say, as an Irish Catholic boy of L.A., I think Noah was nuts to give up the first girlfriend, Rebecca (Emily Airlock). She was fine.
“Nobody Wants This” is streaming on Netflix.
J.P. Devine of Waterville is a former stage and screen actor.
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