Too Jewish for Hollywood?

Like Keeping Up with the Steins, Zach Braff's 2014 Wish I Was Here illuminates the challenges and the possibilities of making not only Jews but also Jewy movies. The production history of this film is arguably more well-known than the film itself, though the Jewishness of that history is too often overlooked. Braff, the director of the 2004 indie hit Garden State and the star of the long- running TV show Scrubs, wanted to make a "thematic" rather than a literal sequel to Garden State. While Garden State focused on the angst of twenty- somethings trying to find their way in the world, Wish I Was Here moves into the next decade of life. This film focuses on a still-aspiring actor -- Aidan Bloom (played by Braff) -- whose professional dreams are at odds with the needs of a family, which includes wife Sarah (Kate Hudson) and two children whose attendance at Jewish day school is subsidized by a dying observant grandfather (Gabe Bloom, played by Mandy Patinkin).