That the film took two years between its U.K. and U.S. premieres should be no surprise. Despite its charms, Sixty Six is far too Anglo-centric to make a serious dent in the U.S. Yet, it may not even appeal to those American intellectuals who love all things Blighty. Sixty Six is part of a new generation of multicultural British drama, one that first hit the U.S. with Bend It Like Beckham and has seen various incarnations such as My Son the Fanatic, Children of Men, and This is England. It reflects a culture that is questioning the very nature of Britishness, and represents a change of British values to something that more closely resembles the American. Combine this kind of unfamiliar England with the unfamiliar Judaism, and you have a movie that will be utterly baffling to American audiences.
The biggest question with Sixty Six is whether we’ll be seeing more films like this in the future. In addition to representing a new kind of British film, we’re experiencing a new kind of Judaism here in the U.S. As Jews get further and further removed from Ellis Island and World War II, a whole slew of generational eccentricities pop up. In the lighter realm, we get the hip-hop leaning New York drug dealer Luke Shapiro of The Wackness and the slackers of the Judd Apatow film, for which Judaism is more a vehicle for comedy than a source of cultural values. Yet, we also get the globally-minded Judaism of Munich and A Mighty Heart’s Daniel Pearl, where Israel plays an increasingly large role in the American eye.
In that kind of diversity, will films like Sixty Six, which address traditional Jewish issues more subtly and from a more unique angle, find a place in contemporary filmmaking? Paul Weiland, whose previous credits include work with the Mr. Bean television show and City Slickers II, is hardly a pioneering filmmaker. But whether he meant to or not, Weiland may be onto something new here.
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