The Tollbooth

Ambling but never less than endearing.

Telling an obviously lived-in tale, this small-scale indie drama suffers from a compendium of cliches.

How is czarist Russia like modern-day Brooklyn? Touché, but let's say this time the answer's not Brighton Beach. It's not The Tollbooth either, but what with the movie's dramatization of the opposition between tradition and individualism for a Jewish family's three "marrying age" daughters, "Fiddler on the Roof" parallels will inevitably be drawn.

Lack of perspective and shaky comic tone plague Tollbooth -- sinking it in a morass of whiny cliches.

The question is, if Sarabeth is so desperate to escape this oppressive distillation of Jewish neuroses, why would filmmaker Debra Kirschner think we'd want to stick around?

Written and directed with overwhelming earnestness by Debra Kirschner, The Tollbooth can't overcome Sarabeth's self-involved narration and insipid personality.

Kirschner's excruciatingly earnest coming-of-age comedy, is about as fresh as year-old matzoh and plays like the unholy spawn of "Brighton Beach Memoirs" and "Fiddler on the Roof."