The Believer is, I think, a movie about what it means to be a Jew, both in the religious and ethnic senses of the term. Because I am not Jewish, I do not think I totally understood the movie, but I got enough of it to realize that it is a very strong, compelling drama.
Inspired by a true story (which you wouldn't know from the film, I only found this out through the DVD's interview with director Bean), The Believer is Danny (Ryan Gosling). But what does he really believe? He's an intellectual skinhead who attends fascist meeting, hangs out with a bunch of neo-Nazi friends who are a lot dumber than he is and has a unique hatred of Jews- which is surprising, because he is, or was one. He lives at home with his sister and father, and we see through flashbacks that he was once a Torah student who abandoned his studies because of serious disagreements with standard Jewish theology.
One of the pleasures of the film is trying to figure out exactly why Danny ended up this way, and there are no clear answers. Bean suggests that he might his own people because of what he considers to be a defeatist attitude- he has the gall to tell three Holocaust survivors that they should have fought back to the Nazis. But that doesn't explain everything- Danny has an odd respect for the artifacts of Judaism, it's almost as if he feels as if he has respect for God, but not his own people. It is probably true that every religion has lapsed laity that ends up hating their own faith (Sinead O'Connor is famous for this on the Catholic side), but it does seem that Danny has a level of hatred that goes beyond the practical and into the philosophical- Danny hates Judaism not so much because of a bad Rabbi or a bad experience at synogauge, but in a sort of fundamental, almost spiritual way.
If the movie has a flaw, it's that it there is no direct and clear plotline, at times the movie seems like a collection of scenes rather than a clear narrative, and it seemed that there were several loose ends that Bean never tied up. In the director's interview, Bean states that in some ways it's impossible to completely understand Danny's motivations unless you are Jewish yourself, and I believe him- there is a lot of dialogue that assumes some knowledge of the religion and its practices that I did not have. Although this in some ways limit's the films appeal I respected this choice- not everything is simplified for an ignorant audience. This is a compelling film- at times difficult, but also thought provoking.
The Believer (2001)