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'Keeping Up With the Steins': Sweet story, engaging cast

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Keeping up with the Steins in the warmhearted comedy "Keeping Up With the Steins" ultimately comes down to one thing: topping a "Titanic"-themed bar mitzvah aboard a cruise ship in which Zach Stein (Carter Jenkins) stands on the prow of a fake ship and yelps, "I'm the King of the Torah!"

Miramax Films

'Keeping Up With The Steins'

C+

The verdict: What's the Yiddish word for sweet?

Director: Scott Marshall
Starring: Garry Marshall, Daryl Hannah, Jeremy Piven, Jami Gertz, Daryl Sabara, Doris Roberts
Run time: 99 minutes
Release date: May 12, 2006
Rating: PG-13 for some crude language, nudity and brief drug references.
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And Adam Fiedler (Jeremy Piven) will top it. No matter what his son Benjamin (Daryl Sabara) thinks — or even wants.

He has to. He and Arnie Stein (Larry Miller) used to be best friends, but now they're rival agents — "like a pimp for Hollywood stars" is how Benjamin generously describes his dad's job. Adam eventually decides he'll rent Dodger Stadium for a baseball-themed party.

To keep his father otherwise engaged — and the heat off himself — Benjamin hits upon a scheme that suggests, in a town like L.A., he's already a man. Unbeknown to Adam, Benjamin invites his grandfather, Irwin (Garry Marshall), to the ceremony. Granddad and Adam haven't spoken since Irwin abandoned the family 26 years ago.

Irwin shows up with his granola-brained, much younger girlfriend (is there any other kind?), Sacred Feather (Daryl Hannah), a week early (another Benjamin touch). Despite the peacemaking efforts of the boy's mother (Jamie Gertz) and grandmother (Doris Roberts), who's still technically married to Irwin, complications ensue.

So do life lessons, intergenerational bonding and a buck-naked Irwin frolicking in the family pool.

There's not much new here, but the engaging cast — add Cheryl Hines as a pushy party planner, Sandra Taylor as the trophy wife Arnie met at a wet T-shirt contest, Atlanta-born Jaron Lowenstein as an understanding cantor and, in a nice bit of bar-mitzvah continuity, Richard Benjamin from "Goodbye Columbus" as a smoothie rabbi — keeps the formula reasonably fresh. And director Scott Marshall (Garry's son) wisely eschews the overdone gaucheries of the recent "When Do We Eat?" (well, the Neil Diamond appearance at the end is a little much).

Scott's pop pretty much walks off with the movie — and nepotism has nothing to do with it. He's a dream granddad — wise, funny, patient and hooked up with a hot babe. Marshall, who's Italian, proves you don't have to be Jewish to play a perfect mensch.