“Have you talked to [Redacted] lately” is a question that many mothers love to haunt their single children with. “What about [Redacted],” “I just ran into [Redacted] at the grocery store,” “[Redacted] was at church today,” or, as kicks off the plot of 31 Candles, “Ava Shapiro’s going to be there.” Jonah Feingold’s (EXmas; Good to See You) latest entry in his crusade to revive the “big city rom-com” follows a parody of himself, Leo, as he hatches a hairbrained scheme to seduce his childhood crush, Eva, played by Sara Coffey (Queens of the Dead; Devil’s Workshop). Many summers ago, she may or may not have given him an over-the-pants handjob at “Jew Camp” before ghosting him in an AOL chatroom. Now, she’s an actress trying to break onto Broadway while teaching bar mitzvah classes; lessons that lovesick Leo never learned.
L-R: Sarah Coffey as Eva Shapiro and Jonah Feingold as Leo Kadner in 31 CANDLES. Photo courtesy of Level 33 Entertainment.
“People do crazy things when they have a crush”
Many are the early directing careers hampered by immature self-insert work, but Feingold has in his arsenal one of the finest comedic tools: the ability to nail himself to the wall. Where he once directed EXmas (2023) for Amazon, he finds plenty of great jokes in a Jewish bachelor directing The Christmas Kiss for an online retailer. In front of his camera, an actress character played hilariously by NYC Comedian Megan Bitchell (Rent Free) gives her all to make a bad scene work. Afterwards, Leo returns to his unhappy situationship, where he and his lover Molly, played by Djouliet Amara (Hello, Goodbye and Everything in Between; Seance), finally label their relationship as “undefined”. He’s belittled by his parents for not having a real job or a real girlfriend. His grandmother teases him for his not-so-secret-romanticism, and he wears lifts in his shoes to seem taller on his bad app dates. In fact, the biggest belly-laugh the film gave was the first wide shot of Leo and Eva standing next to each other, Eva patiently towering over Leo as he looks up at her with puppy dog eyes; an obvious mismatch that lays out just how much scheming Leo will have to hatch in order to fulfill his bar mitzvah mission and find “real love”.
L-R: Jackie Sandler as Susan, Jonah Feingold as Leo Kadner, and Judy Gold as Rabbi Zelden in Jonah Feingold’s in 31 CANDLES. Photo courtesy of Level 33 Entertainment.
“If God exists…then why Holocaust?”
The selfish nature of Leo’s bar mitzvah mission and general disinterest in his Jewish heritage is not just the joke-machine for the film, but the heart of it. Ava Shapiro is a Jewish woman auditioning for Broadway, Leo’s online dates are auditioning for the role of his girlfriend, and Leo is auditioning for the role of Jewish adult. The film successfully builds a triple parallel between the uncertainty and romance of breaking into a career, newly arrived romantic feelings, and religious tradition, creating a New York bathed in whimsy and warmth.
The New York of Feingold’s films is a New York of possibility. In the short-film he released earlier this year, Good to See You, Central Park is a connecting spoke for romance as much as it is pedestrian traffic. In 31 Candles, Manhattan is tinted with magical realism by Leo’s romanticism. He hovers with the power of love, talks to a puppet-rat more than once, and turns his world into a classic film. Like the New York he shows us, the screenplay revolves around Leo’s perspective.
L-R: Sarah Coffey as Eva Shapiro in 31 CANDLES. Photo courtesy of Level 33 Entertainment.
”You are not in the way of finding real love because real love is not what I’m looking for.”
While most rom-coms are two-handers, 31 Candles deconstructs the one-sided objectification central to the unrequited crush. It doesn’t seek to explore this the way its contemporary films, I Like Movies (2023) or The Threesome (2023) would by letting us see the burden of idealization from the woman’s perspective. Instead, 31 Candles remains critical in and of the man’s point of view as he works through his feelings. Instructive but not liberating. Some will find the knowing perspective compellingly realized, and others will, fairly so, find it alienating. What holds it all together is the depth of Sarah Coffey’s performance. Ava Shapiro feels fully formed as a person, even when we don’t get to see her full agency. In hiding her pain from us, the absurdity of Leo’s incuriosity becomes painfully transparent.
The schemes that we hatch in order to get closer to crushes are rooted in insecurity, not desire. Real love waits behind doors never opened and flees from doors forced open. In an era where dating is commodified by corporations, 31 Candles is a rom-com for our time, breaking down the men who expect love to arrive customized. There is no male loneliness epidemic, there’s a male expectation epidemic. So, to set a realistic expectation, 31 Candles is a pretty good film about that.
In select NYC theaters November 7th, 2025.
In select L.A. theaters December 5th, 2025.
For more information, head to the official Romantical 31 Candles webpage.
Final Score: 4 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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