Isaac Bashevis Singer's beautiful short story "Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy" is turned into a musical ego trip in Barbra Streisand's directorial debut. Set in Eastern Europe in 1904, the story concerns the fortunes of Yentl (Streisand), a girl who wants to study the Torah. Strict Jewish law
prohibits such knowledge for women, but Yentl won't give in to community pressure, so, after the death of her father, she disguises herself as a young man and leaves home, hoping to be accepted into a yeshiva. In this guise, she falls in love with fellow student Avigdor (Mandy Patinkin), who takes
a liking to young Yentl, but never realizes that his friend is really a woman. When Avigdor's engagement to Hadass (Amy Irving) breaks off because her parents disapprove of him, Avigdor asks Yentl to marry Hadass in his stead. Can the deception continue?
Streisand has undertaken an extremely ambitious project to mark her directorial debut and, while far from perfect, the superstar performer shows undeniable promise. The production values are topflight but Streisand lacks visual skill and relies on the musical numbers to link episodes and detail
character motivation. In the opening sequences these songs, all sung by Streisand and structured as musical soliloquies, work quite well but they later become repetitious and intrusive--important characters are tossed aside to make room for her to belt out another tune. In all fairness, however,
Streisand is actually quite credible in her role and she elicits beautifully shaded performances from a large cast, particularly Patinkin and Irving. Streisand owned the movie rights to Singer's story for 14 years and finally acquired the clout to bring the project to life after many years of
trying. Singer, however, was appalled by the film. leave a comment
