It\u2019s quite good. Anna Kendrick, who most know from \u201cTwilight,\u201d \u201cUp in the Air\u201d or \u201cPitch Perfect,\u201d first blew me away when she was 12 years old and a Tony nominee for \u201cHigh Society.\u201d Jeremy Jordan, who was Tony-nominated for \u201cNewsies\u201d (and completely wasted on TV\u2019s \u201cSmash\u201d), is the ultimate triple threat: He sings, he\u00a0dances<\/a>, he acts, plus he\u2019s handsome and charming and marinates beatifically in his own charisma. It\u2019s a shame the big budget movie musical era is no more because Jordan could have been another Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire.<\/p>\n The movie\u2019s conceit is that it sings through five years of a turbulent\u00a0relationship<\/a>, except the hero tells his story forward and the heroine tells hers backward. As a result, it opens with Cathy (Kendrick) reading Jamie\u2019s\u00a0Dear Jane\u00a0letter, while Jamie (Jordan) is remembering their first night together.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s the scene that makes me qualify my answer to the question of \u201cHow was the movie?\u201d with \u201cIt\u2019s quite good, but \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n The song Jamie sings to Cathy as they come barreling through her\u00a0apartment<\/a>\u00a0door, frantically making out and tearing each other\u2019s clothes off (while remaining perfectly on key) is called \u201cShiksa Goddess,\u201d wherein Jamie explains that he\u2019s breaking his Jewish mother\u2019s heart by being with Cathy, but he doesn\u2019t care because Cathy is so awesome.<\/p>\n And how precisely is Cathy awesome, you might ask?\u00a0I\u2019ll let the lyrics answer that question for you:<\/p>\n Just as long as you\u2019re not from\u00a0Hebrew school<\/a>\u00a0\u2013<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019d say \u201cNow I\u2019m getting somewhere!<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m finally breaking through!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019d say \u201cHey! Hey! Shiksa goddess!<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019ve been waiting for someone like you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019ve been waiting through Danica Schwartz and Erica Weiss<\/em><\/p>\n And the Handelman twins.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019ve been waiting through Heather Greenblatt, Annie Mincus,<\/em><\/p>\n Karen Pincus and Lisa Katz.<\/em><\/p>\n And Stacy Rosen, Ellen Kaplan,<\/em><\/p>\n Julie Silber and Janie Stein.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019ve had Shabbos dinners on Friday nights<\/em><\/p>\n With ev\u2019ry Shapiro in Washington Heights<\/em>.<\/p>\n (Each of the above-named girls is then briefly offered up on screen as an example of a particular Jewish cliche.)<\/p>\n It was at this point that my (non-Jewish)\u00a0husband<\/a>\u00a0leaned over to me and whispered, \u201cThat\u2019s pretty offensive, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n Little bit.<\/p>\n Later, my husband elaborated, \u201cIt was obvious their\u00a0relationship<\/a>\u00a0had no future when the very first love song he sings her is about all the things she isn\u2019t rather than all the things she is.\u201d<\/p>\n Not\u00a0things<\/em>. Just one thing.\u00a0Think of it as \u201cThe Last 5 Years\u201d\u2026 and the\u00a0Jewish<\/a>\u00a0Problem. Did I find it offensive as a Jewish woman? I did. But also as merely a\u00a0woman<\/a>, and as a human being in general.<\/p>\n There are those who would find it hypocritical of me. After all, as I noted above, I\u2019m married to a\u00a0non-Jew\u00a0<\/a>myself. But I married him because of who he is, not because of who he isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Ever since he and I have been together, I am regularly accosted by women about 15-20 years older than me who all want to tell me about the\u00a0African-American boyfriend<\/a>\u00a0they had in college, but their parents didn\u2019t approve so they broke off the relationship. Women closer to my age surreptitiously confide, \u201cI\u2019m into black guys, too.\u201d<\/p>\n I am not \u201cinto black guys.\u201d I\u2019m into my husband. In fact, he was the first non-Jew I\u2019d dated in about a decade. By conscious choice. I was even seeing a (very) nice Jewish boy when we met. But the connection between my husband and I was too strong. I didn\u2019t make the decision to be with him lightly. And I didn\u2019t make it because, as Jamie sings:<\/p>\n I\u2019m breaking my mother\u2019s heart.<\/em><\/p>\n The JCC of Spring Valley is shaking<\/em><\/p>\n And crumbling to the ground,<\/em><\/p>\n And my grandfather\u2019s rolling,<\/em><\/p>\n Rolling in his grave<\/em>.<\/p>\n Despite my own life choices, I would still prefer it if my children married Jews (yes, yes, I know, more hypocrisy)<\/p>\n Why? Because, for one thing, not every\u00a0non-Jew<\/a>\u00a0will necessarily be like their father and agree to raise their children Jewish, host a Passover seder, give up a Christmas tree, attend Tot Shabbat, pay for Jewish day school, and sit in temple knowing that congregants are looking at him and wondering what the story is here.<\/p>\n (For the record, I know some people find it extremely offensive, and to each their own, but when it comes to our family, if you\u2019re curious, feel free to ask what our story is and we\u2019ll happily tell you. I prefer to teach my kids to accept strangers\u2019 questions, rude though they sometimes may be, as expressions of genuine curiosity and an honest eagerness to learn rather than the insensitive disturbance other interracial families I know see it as.)<\/p>\n I would like my children to marry someone Jewish to increase the odds of them continuing the\u00a0traditions<\/a>\u00a0with which they were raised. (Though it\u2019s no guarantee of anything. I know couples where both parents are Jewish who aren\u2019t nearly as committed to raising their kids Jewish as my husband is. Again, to each their own.)<\/p>\n But even if they don\u2019t marry Jews, I would really, really prefer that they choose their spouses, of whatever religion, race, ethnicity, gender, etc., for the right reasons. I hope they will select a partner based on their intelligence, on their sense of humor, on their kindness, on their passions, their career, their hobbies. Heck, even how much money they make is still a better reason than because their name isn\u2019t Stein or Weiss or Shapiro.<\/p>\n I married my husband based on who he was as an individual. Which was exactly the reason I didn\u2019t marry any of the Jews I\u2019d dated before him. (This despite my earlier generalization regarding (some) Soviet Jewish men like\u00a0Gary Shteyngart<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Hey, maybe that\u2019s why we\u2019ve managed to last longer than Jamie and Cathy\u2019s (mostly miserable) last five years!<\/p>\n Kveller<\/a>\u00a0is a thriving community of women and parents who convene online to share, celebrate, and commiserate their experiences of raising kids through a Jewish lens. Visit\u00a0Kveller.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Share](\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\")