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63Litvak's broad comedy has novelty on its side, and though the script never rises above sitcom-style one-liners and sight gags, strong performances invest both the jokes and the syrupy moments of forgiveness and reconciliation with no small measure of, yes, heart.
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63The film turns that stale old Seder into warmed-up dinner theater.
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By the time the ending rolls around, as we watch the slow unclamping of jaws from jugulars, we feel exhausted. Imagine how the actors must have felt.
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50It's possible to achieve hilarity and pathos, but it's not easy, and Litvak isn't quite skilled enough to make the sex jokes rest easily beside the final grandiose and pat confessions. As a result, When Do We Eat? merely whets your appetite for a fresh take on family matters.
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50Surprisingly watchable because of its cast - especially Jack Klugman, who steals every scene he's in as Dad's paranoid survivor father. All he has to do to stand out is underact.
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50A debut film that's more well-intentioned than funny.
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50Success depends on the degree to which Jewish auds connect with the broadly drawn stereotypes; gentiles and others are sure to pass over this culturally specific comedy altogether.
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42A tonal mess, a kitchen-sink comic melodrama that veers from broad comedy to sticky drama without ever finding a palatable or consistent tone.
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40A self-consciously zany dysfunctional family comedy, When Do We Eat? strains so hard to be outrageous that it sacrifices characters for caricatures. They might have had something if they'd let everybody relax, be themselves and enjoy dinner.
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38Yearns to be fresh but ends up tasteless. It's as drawn-out, forced and annoying as a holiday meal with a dozen carping relatives.
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Sure, the food looks good and the prayers are worth hearing, but there just isn't enough wine in the world to tempt the prophet Elijah into dropping by this household when this is the company he'll get.
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30An indie ethnic comedy clearly hoping to become the Jewish equivalent to "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," this well-timed offering, which arrived in time for Passover, is unlikely to have that sort of crossover appeal, or any appeal at all, for that matter.
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In his sour little movie When Do We Eat?, the director Salvador Litvak, like many before him, misses the target, landing instead in the adjacent territories of Tries Too Hard and Bad Taste.
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30This 2005 farce about a hellish Passover seder panders to middle-class Jews as gleefully as Tyler Perry's movies pander to middle-class African-Americans, though there's less religiosity and a greater degree of self-hatred in the vulgar stereotypes.
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20The most persistent question asked at When Do We Eat? will probably be "When do we leave?" This abrasive Passover comedy-drama is extremely difficult to sit through, and if its makers weren't all Jewish, it would be considered anti-Semitic.
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Positive: 5 out of 8
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Mixed: 0 out of 8
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Negative: 3 out of 8
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