Miriam

In Miriam, director Josie Andrews crafts a sun-drenched love letter to rebellion with a twist of Torah. In 1985, Los Angeles, 12-year-old Miriam is chosen by her rabbi to be the first girl to have a bat mitzvah in her Orthodox Jewish community, a decision that stirs controversy among its more conservative members. While her parents support the rabbi’s decision, Miriam is less enthusiastic. She feels trapped by the expectations being placed on her and secretly begins skipping her Hebrew lessons.

Instead of studying, Miriam pursues her true passion: skateboarding. She hides her board in the bushes on her walk home from school and heads to the local skatepark, where an older teen helps her practice. With Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” blasting in her Walkman, Miriam dreams of dropping into the deep end of the pool but hesitates. After a failed attempt, she rushes home late for Shabbat dinner, concealing her bruises and her double life from her family.

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“Miriam is chosen by her rabbi to be the first girl to have a bat mitzvah in her Orthodox Jewish community”

As pressure builds and the date of her bat mitzvah nears, Miriam finds herself caught in the middle of a change in the orthodoxy without much say in the matter. All she wants to do is shred on her skateboard.

First, Pearl Scarlett Gold is absolutely perfect as Miriam. She plays a kid caught between two worlds: her family’s Jewish faith and a young teen who just wants to have fun. Maybe she’s not quite ready to enter adulthood just yet.

I’m sure for director Josie Andrews, having a great young actor makes telling one’s story easy. Josie makes a complicated story easy to follow. The skateboard park and family dinners scene feel effortless, and the point of the tale quickly becomes crystal clear. It’s a solid effort for a solid story from Levi Alexander.

Pearl Scarlett Gold is a breakout revelation, and Josie Andrews proves she can carve narrative lines as cleanly as Miriam does concrete. Miriam reminds us that sometimes the holiest act is carving your own path—even if it’s through a halfpipe.