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- [00:00]
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- [00:22]
Linda Holmes
So many things can make it hard to fall in love you're shy and they're extroverted you're adventurous and they're cautious or maybe you're agnostic and they're a rabb that's the premise of netflix's nobody wants this the series stars kristen bell and adam brody and there's plenty of romantic comedy banter and good chemistry but there are also some pretty deep questions about faith and compatibility and they get pretty serious not only about love but also about judaism the series just came back for a second season so we thought it was the perfect time to revisit our conversation about the show i'm linda holmes and today we're talking about nobody wants this on pop culture happy hour from npr.
- [01:06]
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- [02:26]
Podcast Sponsor Announcer
Support for this podcast and the following message come from twentieth century studios presenting deliver me from nowhere from scott cooper director of academy award winning film crazy heart brings you the story of the most pivotal chapter in the life of an icon starring golden globe winner jeremy allen white and academy award nominee jeremy strong experience the movie that critics are raving is an intelligent journey into the soul of an artist springsteen deliver me from nowhere only in theaters this friday.
- [02:56]
Linda Holmes
Joining me today is sarah ventri she's npr's religion and spirituality producer hello sarah welcome to the show i'm so happy.
- [03:03]
Sarah Ventri
To see you hi linda it's so good to see you too in nobody.
- [03:07]
Linda Holmes
Wants this kristen bell plays joanne who makes a podcast about relationships with her sister morgan she's played by justine loop who is probably best known for playing willa on succession then there's adam brody who plays noah a rabbi who's broken up with the girlfriend his family adored his closest confidant is his brother sasha played by timothy simons you might know him as the tall guy on veep when joanne and noah meet at a party they like each other immediately you're a real life rabbi it's hot right.
- [03:41]
Sarah Ventri
I mean sort of but there are.
- [03:44]
Linda Holmes
Some hurdles for them when it comes to being together not only for all the usual reasons insecurities old business meddling family but because noah's commitments to his jewish faith and his leadership in his faith community are serious and meaningful and it's not clear whether he can have a partner who isn't part of those things nobody wants this was created by writer and podcaster aaron foster based on her story of falling in love with her husband who's jewish which she wasn't when they met it is streaming on netflix now sarah this was really super my jam cause i am a romantic comedy person and i like these leads and their chemistry my understanding is that it was a little bit less your jam than my jam talk to me.
- [04:26]
Sarah Ventri
About that this is true so i'm not the biggest fan of romantic comedies but i really like when they're super weird or when there's like some sort of quirky odd unexpected thing about them but not in like a quirky twee way like in a sort of uncomfortable way i like discomfort so i think for me look a lot of jewish music is sung in harmonic minor key there's something a little bit sad there's a little tinge of unexpectedness i want this in my romantic comedy particularly when i'm seeing what is billed to me as a hot rabbi romantic comedy yeah.
- [05:05]
Linda Holmes
You know that makes sense to me because like i'm a fan of both of these performers adam brody and kristen bell i have enjoyed both of them in other things i think they are both good rom com leads and i enjoyed them a lot together i think they have terrific chemistry they are they've both done other shows where they've done kind of fun back and forth dialogue and that part of it worked really well here for me but that's because i am a rom com person and i am a sucker for a banter.
- [05:32]
Unknown Female Voice 1
Scene you seem to be going through.
- [05:34]
Unknown Female Voice 2
Something oh no i'm just in constant.
- [05:36]
Unknown Female Voice 1
Need of attention i respect that i also like attention i say i don't.
- [05:40]
Unknown Female Voice 2
But i do you do right sorry.
- [05:42]
Unknown Female Voice 1
I'M cute i like when people notice.
- [05:43]
Unknown Female Voice 2
There you go you are cute i.
- [05:45]
Linda Holmes
Notice in a romantic comedy you're always going to see people who meet cute as they say and one of the things that i think they're going for in this show that is intentional is that these people quickly conclude that they're pretty much perfect for each other except for this major issue of he's a rabbi and she's not jewish right this.
- [06:10]
Sarah Ventri
One major part of not only your profession but like it's your vocation it's your identity it's your everything you're not.
- [06:17]
Unknown Female Voice 2
By chance wrestling with your faith are you considering throwing it all away because with all of the and the flirting you really don't feel like a rabbi.
- [06:24]
Unknown Female Voice 1
Yeah yeah i know i play up the torah bad boy vibe but no i'm all in on this thing what.
- [06:31]
Linda Holmes
I did like about it was i don't see a lot of things about anybody whose faith is super super important to them and it's not a thing that television tends to be great at or willing to wade into and it's not presented like this is really just an odd couple thing and you know sure okay well he'll be jewish and she won't be jewish and love conquers all and they'll you know it's treated more seriously than that and i did appreciate i think that part i did.
- [07:03]
Sarah Ventri
Appreciate that part although there was one sort of really striking thing in that vein that really bothered me that i couldn't quite get past which is that at some point he broaches the question of whether or not she may consider conversion as a possible solution to this problem religiously speaking this is not how this conversation should go i think in practical terms this is probably how it does go in some relationships yeah jews actually don't believe in proselytism in fact traditionally if you wanna convert to judaism the rabbi is supposed to deny you three times like you have to really want it and be really persistent about.
- [07:42]
Linda Holmes
It oh i did not know that.
- [07:43]
Sarah Ventri
Yeah so the idea that a rabbi of all people would be the one trying to do it and there is sort of a moment where he kind of realizes that her in considering converting that she's considering it for him and he kind of says like oh but also for you right like cause this is really important and you have to do it for yourself and it's very clear that she is not a lot of times when we think about religious people and we see representation of a religious person in tv or movies the person is either completely secular or like completely on the other end of the spectrum and hyper religious and so the idea that he's a rabbi but he's not orthodox like he goes to friday night services and leads a service at temple and then afterwards goes to a bar that is a much more kind of liberal reform judaism that we don't see as much of and so even in that context the ide that it would be such a problem that he was dating a non jew and then he would go so far as to ask her to convert when that is like truly not something you're supposed to do is really was quite striking to.
- [08:47]
Linda Holmes
Me i would tend to suspect that part of what happened in the writing is that the subtleties of this are hard to convey but i think in a way that's what the show is getting at is that ultimately it's so common for romantic comedies to kind of take the position that like anything you do for love is noble right and i do think this show gets as far as to say that's not really true and for both of them it's a thing where they have to think like if you're only converting because you want to marry this person or because you want to stay with this person are you really converting at all or are you just pretending to convert in a sense like it's a sort of a how do you know that you mean it thing that i think they would like to kind of probably deal with more subtly than they ultimately can but i think that's one of the things the show is trying to be about but i agree with you that they don't entirely get there yeah i.
- [09:47]
Sarah Ventri
Do think that one thing they did well in this respect though is that so in religious like journalism and like scholarly religion they actually refer to someone like her as a none which is n o n e which means that she is somewhere on the spectrum of atheist or agnostic or spiritual but not religious or like has a set of beliefs but they're not really contained and actually i would argue that she might not even be any of those things because like her beliefs seem to be non existent and also kind of terrible like i think this is part of what i didn't like about this was that she actually doesn't seem to me like a very good person and she doesn't really care about being a good person and at some point i think it's her sister says to her you don't even have beliefs but there is a moment where she sort of realizes that non belief is belief and that not having a belief that is spiritual in nature is also meaningful and is also something and so it's not so simple as to just say well it's important to the other person so i guess i can do it and that i thought was kind of interesting it's.
- [10:52]
Linda Holmes
Funny because her podcast is about relationships and clearly falling in love and finding a partner is something she's very very focused on or she thinks she's very very focused on so to her that's kind of the ultimate goal is to find somebody and fall in love she ultimately realizes like oh i can't even if i really really think this might be the best person i'm ever going to find otherwise i can't disrespect his religious beliefs in this way and i can't kind of sacrifice my own compass to please somebody else exactly she comes.
- [11:32]
Sarah Ventri
To this realization by talking to the rabbi's ex who is jewish who is religious who sort of has this like very old fashioned dream of being the they call it the rebbetzin the rabbi's.
- [11:46]
Unknown Female Voice 2
Wife he represents the temple so you represent the temple people look to you as an example like a good example that's a lot of pressure you look so scared right now no it should feel like good pressure you know you.
- [12:02]
Sarah Ventri
See so many moments early on where joanne she's just so inconsiderate of other people like she's sort of in the very first episode like tells her date she has to go to the bathroom and then just leaves just like ditches him she routinely ghosts people she's like super selfish and self absorbed and so i think it sort of takes a lot for her to realize that like this isn't just about her wanting to fall in love and have this beautiful magical thing but that actually there's a lot of collateral damage that can come and that when you marry someone you're not just marrying them but you're marrying their family and their community and like so many things about them yeah i.
- [12:40]
Linda Holmes
Mean in a way it's a romantic comedy that ultimately comes around to the idea that romantic love is not everything and that is somewhat uncommon wait do.
- [12:49]
Sarah Ventri
You think that's where it lands because i did not get that from it.
- [12:52]
Linda Holmes
Well i think it's unclear where it lands okay it's unclear that you're not at another point that's going to turn out to be a temporary solution to their problem okay we talked a little bit about what kind of a jewish person he is and he is more a liberal as you said sort of rabbi yeah yeah yeah other than that how does judaism in this show how much does it look like judaism as you know it so it was interesting.
- [13:22]
Sarah Ventri
Because there was a i did notice that there were a mix of things that sort of happened and didn't happen so for example there's like a scene where joanne brings a gift of a charcuterie plate to the rabbi's parents house and it has prosciutto on it and first of all she apparently doesn't know that prosciutto is pork which is its own issue but then you know there's this thing oh we can't possibly have pork in our house this is a kosher household number one the plate also had milk and meat on it together which by definition is not kosher even if it had been beef and not pork so there's like another kosher problem there right the other thing is i was like oh this is a family that keeps kosher that's kind of interesting or they keep some type of kosher style but then there's another scene where he tells his brother sasha i wanna do havdala with now havdala is the service that marks the end of shabbat that happens on saturday night at sundown and it separates the holy time of shabbat from the kind of everyday nature of the week it's like the beginning of the week right sasha doesn't even know what havdala is and that for example was like felt incongruous to me.
- [14:33]
Unknown Female Voice 1
Havdala is seriously slept on no i.
- [14:35]
Unknown Male Voice
Completely agree that's the dessert with the.
- [14:38]
Sarah Ventri
Custard right no it's a ceremony to.
- [14:40]
Unknown Female Voice 1
Mark the end of shabbat with the three stars you light the candle you smell the spices nothing it'll come back.
- [14:45]
Sarah Ventri
To you but i do think that they were doing some interesting signposting with things like the kosher he's wearing a yarmulke a lot of the time you know he says certain things that even like oh well we have to wait till there are three stars in the sky that's like a more traditional sort of way of understanding havdala but then he's like doing it in this way where he can convince his non jewish girlfriend that judaism is magical which is not something you're supposed to even try to convince somebody of so i think it was a little bit mixed up but i also felt like it was there were things about it that did feel true to me as a representation of kind of liberal reform judaism particularly like they're on the west coast it felt super west coast to me i also was thinking a lot about rami.
- [15:28]
Linda Holmes
Yes rami is rami youssef's hulu series sort of loosely based on his experiences and his own family right so i'm.
- [15:35]
Sarah Ventri
A huge fan of rami so rami his family are egyptian immigrants he's a first generation american he's muslim and he's navigating kind of this identity both as a first generation american but also as a muslim american and trying to figure out what it means to be a millennial and a muslim american who steps in between secular and religious societies on the regular but i think he sort of gets at this question of like do i go to mosque on friday and then go to a party on friday night this did not get it in at it in nearly as nuanced of a way but i think because it was background whereas in rami i think it's foreground i think that they were just trying to give these little signposts to people that like hey he's jewish and he's doing the thing and it's not just incidental well and i.
- [16:26]
Linda Holmes
Also think it's more complicated in this show in the sense of trickier to make it work because noah is a rabbi and so one of the things that's happening in rami is that he's just kind of grown up in his faith and he comes to this really interesting point in adulthood where he's asking a lot of questions that he hasn't always asked and i feel like noah as a rabbi would have gone through a whole process of education where figuring out what his judaism is going to look like probably would have happened during the course of that education yeah definitely.
- [17:01]
Sarah Ventri
And interestingly he actually did have a really beautiful answer when joanne asks him why did you want to be a rabbi he has this really lovely answer about how he uses it as a way to make sense of the world.
- [17:12]
Unknown Female Voice 1
And when i started paying attention to the lessons in the torah and was exposed to the rituals and the traditions it allowed me to view the world as a much safer and much more meaningful place and i knew from a very young age that i wanted to spend my life trying to help keep.
- [17:28]
Sarah Ventri
It alive and i think that joanne is trying to make sense of the world but she's doing it not only not in a religious context which many people do it not in a religious context but again i think she seems to have such a small moral compass that now she's with someone who has a big moral compass and it's like jarring to her and i think being with him does make her think more about right and wrong like she has these moments where she's like i would have done this before but i'm not gonna do it now right i also imagined sort of an alternate reality in which separate from the main storyline of the rabbi and joanne there were a lot of other couples that get together in unexpected ways namely i actually think that sasha's wife should be lesbian lovers with the rabbi's ex oh with the.
- [18:15]
Linda Holmes
Rabbi'S ex sure uh huh um and.
- [18:17]
Sarah Ventri
Then that frees up sasha so that helps a little bit too yeah yeah.
- [18:20]
Linda Holmes
Yeah there's some fun business between sasha and morgan joanne's sister they kind of become they sort of start out as like having a lot of friction and then they kind of become pals you're.
- [18:31]
Unknown Male Voice
The loser sibling what and no judgment i'm the loser sibling i mean it's hard to compete when your brother's the jewish jesus doesn't make as much sense with you though you're like cool as hell you always have a witty comeback for everything you're like a smoke show you got like this hot earth mother.
- [18:45]
Linda Holmes
Vibe going on but i enjoyed both of those actors and that little stuff too it's kind of playful and fun.
- [18:53]
Sarah Ventri
I enjoyed them i would be remiss if i didn't say the thing that i was most annoyed about though linda which was how the hell does this podcast a exist b have a huge listenership sarah c get monetized sarah says sarah i was just like listen the most unrealistic thing y' all did was make a situation in which two sisters who hold bad microphones in poor placement on their couch and who don't know how to use xlr cables yes have a monetized podcast that makes all their.
- [19:24]
Linda Holmes
Money yes so they have this super popular podcast that it seems to me they make alone which that is not a thing nope especially if neither one of you seems like you know what.
- [19:35]
Sarah Ventri
You'Re doing they said that somebody wrote a review where they complained about her taking too many pee breaks and i was just like if these people don't know how to edit out their own bathroom breaks listen this is a microcosm.
- [19:47]
Linda Holmes
Of larger issues yes it is another entry in the long line of shows and movies about podcasts that do not know about what things look like yeah well we want to know what you think about nobody wants this find us at facebook dot com pchhh that brings us to the end of our show sarah ventri you are a delight i am always so happy to see you thank you for being here you are.
- [20:09]
Sarah Ventri
A delight thank you so much for.
- [20:11]
Linda Holmes
Having me this episode was produced by liz metzger and edited by mike katsif our supervising producer is jessica reedy and hello come in provides our theme music music thank you for listening to pop culture happy hour from npr i'm linda holmes and we'll see you all next time.
- [20:29]
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