You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah: The Sandlers Steal The Show

YOU know you’re getting old when you go from hard-relating to YA comedies to tut-tutting the kids in them. I’m now the parents of the protagonists in these movies — forever amused, cool, concerned, semi-invested. In this case, I’m Adam Sandler, the basketball-shorts-wearing Jewish father of the girl who falls out with her best friend over a boy on the eve of their epic bat mitzvahs. At one point, I even yelled “Oh no, missy, don’t you dare!” at the screen when she snuck away to kiss that popular dude (who I’m going to kill) in school. Which is why I found myself nodding my head vigorously at Sandler’s slightly exaggerated dad-rant (“We fought the Nazis for this?”) after she’s caught. Of course he’s disappointed. Of course I am.

But that’s the thing. What’s nice about Netflix’s You Are Not So Invited To My Bat Mitzvah is that, even though it’s written and made by adults, the film is not as patronising as one. It treats the girls as humans for whom a spat is end-of-the-world stuff. It may look funny, but it’s not funny for the kids involved, and the film makes sure we know that. You feel for the protagonist, Stacy, and her complex relationship with best friend Lydia once both of them fall for the same douchey boy. The stakes are genuinely high, and the jealousy is ugly. Stacy is selfish and manipulative when she feels betrayed, while Lydia is cold and unsparing in return. Their split does feel irreversible. Mean things are done. And both of them are chastened for crossing the line. In the real world, friends don’t come back from this point. They fight, drift apart, make new friends, move away and then forget why they fought to begin with. An old lady warns Stacy of this inevitability — a nice touch — so that the girls don’t go too far. And so that newness does not entirely replace oldness.

It’s hard to remember that they’re kids, but it’s also easy to forget that they are on the brink of adulthood. I like that instead of the usual high-school party scene, the film roots the prom-night-style buildup in a cultural reality. The religion becomes a natural part of their awakening, and the bat mitzvah celebrations define their moral rite of passage. The Jewishness of the story doesn’t feel too quirky or force-fitted; it’s a legitimate and potent backdrop (a bit like Cha Cha Real Smooth) to a coming-of-age journey. The community is the language of what could have easily been yet another cutesy teen-frenemies drama. I also like that a few YA tropes are subverted, especially in Stacy’s last-ditch dash (complete with a romantic sprint) to save a broken friendship. Usually, this is how kids fall in love; here it’s all about putting love into perspective. The ceremony marks the day girls become women, but Stacy refuses to leave her girlhood behind. It’s one of the film’s many nifty devices, which reframes the story as more than easy quirk.

But perhaps my favourite part of You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah is its cultural continuity. Let me explain. Adam Sandler might be the dad Danny, but both Stacy and her elder sister Ronnie are played by his real-life daughters Sunny and Sadie. His wife Jackie, too, plays the role of Lydia’s mother — and it’s particularly sweet when her character praises Danny for being a present and supportive father while she’s going through a divorce herself. The meta-ness of the cast matters, because it’s like watching every Adam Sandler character — every wise-cracking, cringey, laidback and wry-talking misfit he’s ever played — grow up and become a family man on screen. He stays authentic to his anger-management image, and therefore it feels like he’s welcoming the audience into his home after we’ve spent years watching him (mostly) play emotionally stunted buffoons. Danny is Happy Madison and Waterboy and Henry Roth and Zohan years later as ‘settled adults’ living the American Dream. They adjusted, and found peace. And that’s kind of adorable in a nostalgic way, because it lends more credence to Stacy’s arc: She isn’t just any teen, she’s a Sandler teen, a chip off a new block. We know her. She is proof that underdogs like her dad win the day. It’s her bat mitzvah, and the whole world is so invited.

Stream on Netflix.