I chose to watch Bit by Bit on Netflix because I was intrigued by the description. There aren't many movies about Passover seders. I saw it just after Passover and I appreciated how it captured some of the nightmarish aspects family seders can feature including whiny little kids, long passages in Hebrew and family nagging single members to hurry up and get married. It was funny watching J seeing the seder as a challenge to collect the 4 cups and leave: I've felt like that during many seders.
I'm not really a fan of video games: I played Pong and Pacman in arcades back in the day, and I enjoyed the references to Mario Kart, Donkey Kong and Streetfighter. My husband is into VR and I encouraged him to pause his game, take off his helmet and watch the sequence where J fights his analyst. He thought it was a riot.
I haven't seen any other movies about Jewish families in Sweden (fact I found online: Sweden has a Jewish community of around 20,000, which makes it the 7th largest in the European Union). Bit by Bit has some very funny lines about Jewish family life and I thought the characters were wryly observed, including the grandfather. They are not stereotypes. I was not expecting that the grandfather would insist on eating traditional Jewish food like gefilte fish while also insisting bacon is kosher. I laughed at the live carp in the bathtub as well: I remember hearing about my great aunts and uncles taking home live fish to eat for the holidays.
I would have liked to see more from the family during the seder, rather than just them staring and suffering through long passages in Hebrew, the hunt for the afikomen and a brief mention of the 10 plagues for the children. It would have been funnier if the seder showed more tension over the service: Passover for my family consisted of arguments over my parents wanting to rush through the first half of the Maxwell House Haggadah to get to the multiple courses of food my mother prepared like she did every year while nagging my brother and sister in law about when when they were going honor tradition and join a synagogue and take the baby there so he can learn how to ask the 4 questions and stop making jokes about taking the baby to McDonalds on the way home. I've heard about my religious cousins complaining that they couldn't stand any more the seders at our very religious cousin's house that featured long discussions about every point raised in the service and went on until after midnight, and seders from hell led by people who want to make them "relevant" and drag in political discussions about social injustices, including putting oranges or olives on the seder plate to stand for LGBTQ rights or Palestinian rights.
I'm surprised Bit by Bit got such a low rating on IMDB. The ending falls a little flat: I thought the tournament J enters in Thailand looks like it's being held in a back room and looks shoddy compared to the Nintendo championship of his dreams. It would have been great to see J hailed as a gaming champion and as a trailblazer for physically-challenged players. But Bit by Bit has something to entertain everyone. You don't have to be Jewish or a video gaming fan to enjoy it.
I'm not really a fan of video games: I played Pong and Pacman in arcades back in the day, and I enjoyed the references to Mario Kart, Donkey Kong and Streetfighter. My husband is into VR and I encouraged him to pause his game, take off his helmet and watch the sequence where J fights his analyst. He thought it was a riot.
I haven't seen any other movies about Jewish families in Sweden (fact I found online: Sweden has a Jewish community of around 20,000, which makes it the 7th largest in the European Union). Bit by Bit has some very funny lines about Jewish family life and I thought the characters were wryly observed, including the grandfather. They are not stereotypes. I was not expecting that the grandfather would insist on eating traditional Jewish food like gefilte fish while also insisting bacon is kosher. I laughed at the live carp in the bathtub as well: I remember hearing about my great aunts and uncles taking home live fish to eat for the holidays.
I would have liked to see more from the family during the seder, rather than just them staring and suffering through long passages in Hebrew, the hunt for the afikomen and a brief mention of the 10 plagues for the children. It would have been funnier if the seder showed more tension over the service: Passover for my family consisted of arguments over my parents wanting to rush through the first half of the Maxwell House Haggadah to get to the multiple courses of food my mother prepared like she did every year while nagging my brother and sister in law about when when they were going honor tradition and join a synagogue and take the baby there so he can learn how to ask the 4 questions and stop making jokes about taking the baby to McDonalds on the way home. I've heard about my religious cousins complaining that they couldn't stand any more the seders at our very religious cousin's house that featured long discussions about every point raised in the service and went on until after midnight, and seders from hell led by people who want to make them "relevant" and drag in political discussions about social injustices, including putting oranges or olives on the seder plate to stand for LGBTQ rights or Palestinian rights.
I'm surprised Bit by Bit got such a low rating on IMDB. The ending falls a little flat: I thought the tournament J enters in Thailand looks like it's being held in a back room and looks shoddy compared to the Nintendo championship of his dreams. It would have been great to see J hailed as a gaming champion and as a trailblazer for physically-challenged players. But Bit by Bit has something to entertain everyone. You don't have to be Jewish or a video gaming fan to enjoy it.