Beau Jest, opening on 15 Utah film screens today, has a place in the business history of LDS film. In terms of content, it is not an LDS film. It was written and directed by James Sherman, a Jewish playwright from Chicago. His two comic plays Beau Jest and The Foreigner started out in Chicago (where he was in Second City), and became hits Off-Broadway and are regularly seen on community theater stages. Beau Jest, written in 1989, is the story of a Jewish girl who asks a Gentile man to pretend to be her Jewish boyfriend in front of her family. So why is it opening only in Utah, and mentioned in this forum?

It is the first film to have been produced at Halestorm's new Stone Five facilities in Orem. Kurt Hale and Dave Hunter decided a couple of years ago that there was no future in LDS film, and created Stone Five as a studio where family-friendly films without specific LDS content could be made. I think that Hale was listed as a producer at some point, but he is not now. The main financial backer for the film is executive producer David Newton, the mayor of West Jordan. Norton studied film at BYU, but made his fortune by creating a successful cabinet-manufacturing company. He saw a production of Beau Jest at the Hale theater, and approached Sherman about making a movie version of it. Newton put up $1 million dollars of his own money to fund the venture. Another producer is Bryce W. Fillmore, who has produced some LDS films and many of Utah director Craig Clyde’s direct-to-video family films.

Here are the local reviews.

Utah-made 'Beau Jest' lacks quality and humor By Jeff Vice
Deseret Morning News Published: February 22, 2008
BEAU JEST — * 1/2 — Robyn Cohen, Tony Daly, Lainie Kazan; rated PG (vulgarity, mild profanity)

The main character in "Beau Jest" is a young woman who is constantly lying to her loving parents, her long-suffering boyfriend and even an actor that she convinces to play a part in her web of deceit. So, it's a good thing that this duplicitous character also turns out to be a kindergarten teacher. At least that gives her one redeeming trait.

Frankly, this romantic comedy could use a few of them as well. After all, it does waste the talents of a very good supporting cast and has so few laughs in it that it almost defies categorization as a comedy. Robyn Cohen stars as that aforementioned character, Sarah Goldman, whose strict Jewish parents, Miriam and Abe (Lainie Kazan and Seymour Cassel), haven't approved of any of her boyfriends so far. Naturally, she's reluctant to bring home her latest, gentile beau, an advertising executive with the unlikely name of Chris Kringle (Greg Cromer).

Instead, she brings Bob Schroeder (Tony Daly), an actor and part-time escort whom she's hired to play her supposed "perfect boyfriend," a purely fictional Jewish doctor named David Steinberg. This subterfuge is supposed to get Sarah's nagging mother off her back. But the opposite happens, when Miriam demands a command performance or two. As a result, Sarah and Bob start getting closer. But there's another catch -- he's not really Jewish, either.

The movie was produced locally, by the Utah County-based Prostorm Pictures group, and was shot largely at its Stone Five Studios facility. Unfortunately, it's not a strong effort and probably should have gone directly to video.
A few attempts to "expand" the film with a few scenic Chicago locations just make the obvious, badly lit stage sets look more ridiculous. And several shots in the movie are blurry or out of focus.

Also, judging by his feature filmmaking debut, playwright James Sherman should stick to his stage work. The pacing is leaden and his direction is static and unimaginative. He's lucky to have these actors, who are busy trying not to embarrass themselves. The problem, there's just nothing funny for them to do. Though it is nice seeing veterans Cassel and Kazan ("My Big Fat Greek Wedding") working.

"Beau Jest" is rated PG for some suggestive language, scattered mild profanity and ethnic terms used as slurs. Running time: 98 minutes.
© 2008 Deseret News Publishing Company

The Salt Lake Tribune
Beau Jest
1 star (out of 4)

After establishing themselves with an inoffensive, poorly made LDS romantic comedy, "The Singles Ward," Utah's Kurt Hale and Dave Hunter branch out with the first movie filmed at their Stone Five Studios in Provo: an inoffensive, poorly made Jewish romantic comedy. Chicago schoolteacher Sarah (Robyn Cohen) hides her Gentile boyfriend (Greg Cromer) from her parents (Lainie Kazan and Seymour Cassel) by inventing a fictional Jewish-doctor boyfriend, then hires an actor (Tony Daly) to portray the fake. Keeping up the charade gets harder as Sarah and Dr. Boyfriend start falling for each other. James Sherman makes an unsteady directing debut adapting his stage play (which the Hale Centre Theatre has produced a time or two), which, for all the Hollywood actors present (besides veterans Kazan and Cassel, "Sex and the City's" Willie Garson pops in as Sarah's nebbish brother), still has the stilted dialogue and wooden feel of a regional theater production.

You're right Eric, thanks for correcting that. I think I saw some reviews that mentionted that the two plays had some similiarities, and I got it in my head that they were by the same author.

I think Beau Jest is a fun play as well. Let us know whether it's any good as a film, Eric. Perhaps the reviewers are just them jaded selves, or perhaps it's really a bad film.

---

Upon the stage of a theater can be represented in character, evil and its consequences, good and its happy results and rewards; the weakness and the follies of man, the magnamity of virtue and the greatness of truth. The stage can be made to aid the pulpit in impressing upon the minds of a community an enlightened sense of a virtuous life, also a proper horror of the enormity of sin and a just dread of its consequences. The path of sin with its thorns and pitfalls, its gins and snares can be revealed, and how to sun it (Discourses of Brigham Young, p.243; Bookcraft, 199