The new Ang Lee film is not about the great historical happening of forty years ago but about Elliot Teichberg (Demetri Martin), whose parents run a BorschtBelt motel.
Instead, as Iran races to the nuclear finish line, America's Jewish leaders were forced to sit through White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel's kitschy BorschtBelt schmooze about his bar mitzva.
He only gets to be a real character when the actor drops the cultural signifiers and plays what Friedman really is behind the BorschtBelt speech: a middle-aged man looking for love, and a home.