It feels almost obscene to speak negatively of a film
like Dough. It has only the best
intentions. It is not malicious and takes on several noble subjects that are
both particular to its London setting as well as universal in the multicultural
21st century.
Jonathan Pryce is a wonderful actor who has made a career
of flying just under the radar of superstardom. Here he plays Nat Dayan,
proprietor of a kosher bakery that is on the brink of failure alongside the
corporate one-stop shopping convenience next door. He’s hardly recognizable
behind a thick beard and gristled locks of hair, and a yarmulke. Nat clings to
an old way of life in which the family business passes from father to son and
the Jewish community thrives in perpetuity. But time marches on and change
comes. His son became a successful lawyer and the Jews are fleeing (most likely
to the suburbs as they earn their continued financial successes), being
replaced by immigrants and refugees, many of them African Muslims.
