Abe Parent Guide

If you think your kin are hard to get along with, be glad you aren’t Abe (Noah Schnapp). For the 12 year old Brooklynite, family functions are a stew of feuding relatives, seasoned with explosive Middle Eastern geopolitics. Abe’s mother, Rebecca (Dagmara Dominczyk) is Israeli-American and his father, Amir (Arian Moayed) is Palestinian-American. Although Abe’s parents are atheists, his grandparents are devoted to their faiths – Judaism and Islam – and to their shared and hotly contested homeland. No wonder family dinners are hard to swallow.

Devoted to both sides of his family, Abe tries his best to please everyone while attempting to unite both religions in his own life. He talks to his Jewish grandfather (Mark Margolis) about having a bar mitzvah and he tries to fast for Ramadan to please his Muslim grandmother (Salem Murphy). Finally, Abe decides to cook a Thanksgiving dinner that will unite his fractious clan. Luckily, the teenager is an accomplished cook, and he pulls together a meal that unites foods, flavors, and traditions from the Middle East and the USA. But things don’t go as planned…

Abe is an engaging story, thanks primarily to the emotional vulnerability of Noah Schnapp in his leading role. Schnapp honestly portrays Abe’s struggle to figure out his identity: is he Jewish? Muslim? Neither? Can he be both at the same time? And Schnapp’s expressive face fills with anguish as Abe’s relatives bicker with each other and squabble over his future. The most important lesson this movie teaches is aimed directly at parents - when adults fight, they inflict emotional wounds on the innocent bystanders in their homes.

Youthful viewers will find plenty of positive themes in Abe. Developing your talents, reflecting on your values, trying to understand different perspectives, working hard to reach a goal – all of these get screen time in the film. The downside is that the movie features Abe lying to his parents so he can work in a restaurant instead of going to camp. He also runs away from home, which is not a coping strategy parents want their kids to emulate. About a dozen profanities spice up the dialogue, but this is a minor issue compared to the positive messages that are baked into the storyline. It’s not rated, but it falls on the high end of a PG rating and is definitely suitable for older kids, tweens and teens.

When Abe puts together his Thanksgiving dinner, he attempts to blend all five flavors – sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami. Adding a mix of textures and colors and cultural origins allows him to come up with a mouthwatering Thanksgiving feast. Director Fernand Grostein Andrade has done the same thing with Abe. The film is sweet and sad, depressing and hopeful, thoughtful and funny, and consistently lovely to look at (it’s full of close-up shots of delicious food). Best of all, it leaves us with lots to chew on even after the credits roll.