Details

Release year: 2001

Storyline

In late WWII, Brooklyn neighbors wrongly think a couple is Jewish. Facing anti-Semitic persecution, they join forces with a Jewish immigrant to survive and maintain their dignity.

Top credits

Directors

Neal Slavin

Writers

Cast

William H. Macy — Lawrence Newman
Laura Dern — Gertrude Hart
David Paymer — Mr. Finkelstein
Meat Loaf — Fred

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Did you know

• Trailers for the film correctly credit Meat Loaf as 'Michael Lee Aday.'

• Neal Slavin claimed to have wanted to make this film since college.

• The movie was filmed in Toronto, where its producers built a simulacrum of 1940s Brooklyn. Said Neal Slavin, "One of my goals was to build a 'Mary Poppins (1964)'-like world, stylizing the setting so that everything looked perfect so that you felt rather than saw the dark underbelly. You're taken in by the prettiness, but you don't trust it." Editor Tariq Anwar, who had worked on the film American Beauty (1999), was chosen by Slavin to achieve this vision.