Voices – the loss of them, the way they can be trampled and flattened by people who feel they know best – are at the heart of Nathan Silver’s abrasively heartfelt comedy drama Between the Temples, an idiosyncratic and bittersweet American indie set in upstate New York. Benjamin Gottlieb (Jason Schwartzman) has lost his voice, or at least the ability to sing. And this is a problem: fortysomething Ben is a cantor; he chants the prayers and passages from the Torah to the congregation in an inclusive, liberal reform synagogue. The loss of his voice cuts deep into his identity, a physical manifestation of a looming crisis of faith triggered by the death of his wife the previous year.
And then there’s the voice of Carol Kane, Schwartzman’s co-lead in this odd-couple story – Harold and Maude is an obvious reference – that finds comfort in the unexpected connection between two slightly broken people. There has always been a singular and immediately distinctive quality to Kane’s speaking voice; it’s light and high – so comically squeaky at times you could imagine it coming from the mouth of one of the wild-haired felt gonks in the cast of Sesame Street. But there’s also a frazzled, friable element to her delivery – the breathy way her sentences start to crumble before they are fully complete – that brings fragility and vulnerability and gives depth to the quirkiness.
