Word: priestly
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...Edward Norton convinced Stuart Blumberg, an old college friend from Yale, to ditch plans for Harvard Law School and work on a film screenplay. The result of his intervention is _Keeping the Faith_, a new romantic comedy first-time director/producer Norton jokingly refers to as his "$30 million rabbi priest joke." However, while the film certainly pays lip service to its religious subtext, it certainly takes its time in exploring them. The movie's two-hour and ten-minute running time is too long, really, for what is essentially a fluffy date movie with a serious undertone...
Best friends since middle school, Brian Finn (Edward Norton) and Jake Schram (Ben Stiller) are single and successful young men living on New York's Upper West Side. Both men are completely committed to their faith, and equally committed to their respective congregations as a priest and a rabbi. Thinking of themselves as a modern "God Squad, like the new cops who want to shake up the precinct," each tries to enliven their services when the energy level begins to ebb by spicing up their sermons with stand-up comedy. At one point, Jake actually says, "But seriously, folks...
...superior officer. So at 30--the age Beatty was when he produced and starred in Bonnie and Clyde--Norton has directed and starred in Keeping the Faith, a genially wistful romantic comedy about two guys and the girl they've always loved. If this old-fangled triangle about a priest (Norton), a rabbi (Ben Stiller) and a dynamic executive (Jenna Elfman) proves as popular as early previews suggest, it will give further credence to the belief that Norton is blessed. After just seven films, this Yale grad has earned two Oscar nominations, some of the most demanding roles in recent...
...does Milos Forman, who directed Norton in The People vs. Larry Flynt and plays an older priest in Keeping the Faith. He is impressed by Norton's "balance between intelligence and instincts. He's very bright and analytical, but that doesn't close the door to his instincts. I'm sure he analyzed the directors he worked with as thoroughly as he analyzes his parts as an actor. So now, when he says 'Action,' everything is there as planned--plus a few privileged moments, which come from his talent...
Norton likes the variety that acting offers--the new skills to be mastered for each role. He has learned how to act like a priest, a poker player and, for his next film (The Score, with Robert De Niro), a safecracker. "I need diversity of experience," he says. "I'm not interested in playing the same types of things again and again." Yet one theme has emerged, again and again, in his films: the attraction of two men, one reserved, the other volatile. Man against man. My brother's keeper. Sibling rivalry that, in the melodramas, explodes into sibling riflery...