You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah

Stacy and Lydia have been planning their epic bat mitzvahs together for as long as they’ve been BFFs, which has been for their entire lives. But then… on the very cusp of their adulthood, a boy on a BMX skids to stop next to them, creating a Middle School melodramatic kerfuffle that ruins everything, driving a wedge between these two most bosom of bosom buddies. Will the besties patch up their friendship in time to have the most amazing rite of passage ever?

Simply put, You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah is a super cute, funny, good time piece of pleasantly entertaining family entertainment.

Is it mostly surface-level fluff? Sure, but honestly, any of the deeper themes or plot lines that could’ve been explored, but weren’t, or that maybe only had a slight nod to them at best, or that maybe the film just didn’t quite stick the landing on, are all pretty much covered up by the story’s all-around charming comic sweetness.

Based on the novel by Fiona Rosenbloom, this film is yet another in a long line of familiar coming-of-age teen angst stories, a sweet little love letter to the agonies and messiness of the end of childhood. It’s also a bit of a love letter from Adam Sandler to his family too, as this film sees Sandler finally complete his personal acting arc from his humble beginnings as Theo’s main friend (after Cockroach) Smitty, to now being the crotchety Dr. Huxtable of the ensemble. Sandler’s real-life daughters play both of his character’s daughters too, and they are really funny and appealing, and seemed very natural in front of the camera—especially Sunny Sadler, who plays main character Stacy Friedman.

It’s all very cute, and definitely worth checking out.

But yeah… it’s fluff.