Four generations of a Jewish immigrant family create Russ and Daughters, a Lower East Side lox and herring emporium that survives and thrives. Produced to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the store, this documentary features an extensive interview with two of the original daughters for whom the store was named, now 100 and 92 years old, and interviews with prominent enthusiasts of the store including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, chef Mario Batali, New Yorker writer Calvin Trillin, and 60 Minutes correspondent Morley Safer. Rather than a conventional narrator, the filmmakers bring together six colorful longtime fans of the store, in their 80s and 90s, who sit around a table of fish reading the script in the style of a passover Seder. - Written by Julie Cohen
Reviews
I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.
One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
I am a secular Jew, but this movie evokes the parts of Judaism that I love and revere: the Jew food, the harrowing escape from pogroms in Eastern Europe, the humor. You can taste the lox, the herring, the whitefish, right through the TV screen (the movie was used for "Pledge Week" at Channel 13--I taped it and zapped the pledge parts). I related most to the humor of the 4th generation of Russes, who had the nerve to name one of their sandwich concoctions ("the Hebe"). After the 3rd generation complained, they renamed it "the Hebester", so it's not so offensive, just a play on "hipster." I've had people complain when I call the cuisine "Jew Food," but "the Hebe" goes further than I probably would--but I'm of the age of the third generation, not the fourth. And I might complain about the Hebe, but I'd eat it (lox and WASABI--perfect together).
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