Year: 1988
Language: English
Format: 35mm Colour
Runtime: 95 min
Director: Allan Goldstein
Producer: Stephen Foster
Writer: Phil Savath, Morley Torgov
Cinematographer: Ian Elkin
Editor: Richard Martin
Sound: Leon Johnson
Music: Graeme Coleman
Cast: Noam Zylberman, Jan Rubes, Susan Rubes, Aaron Schwarz, Sharon Corder, Fairuza Balk, Saul Rubinek
Production Company: Outside Chance Productions Inc.

Based on Morley Torgov’s acclaimed novel – which won the 1983 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour – The Outside Chance of Maximillian Glick tells the tale of a twelve-year-old Jewish boy coming of age in the small Prairie town of Beausejour, Manitoba in 1964. As his bar mitzvah draws near, Maximillian Glick (Noam Zylberman) falls for the lovely young Celia (Fairuza Balk), with whom he has been paired for a piano competition. When his parents object to the burgeoning friendship between Max and Celia, who is not Jewish, and pull him from the competition, Max retaliates by refusing to have a bar mitzvah. Finding inspiration in the unlikely form of Rabbi Teitelman (Saul Rubinek), an orthodox Jew who dreams of being a standup comedian, Max realizes he can follow his own dream despite the constraints of society.

Witty and sensitive, The Outside Chance of Maximillian Glick won the Toronto-City Award for Best Canadian Feature Film at the 1988 Toronto International Film Festival® and was named Most Popular Canadian Film at the Vancouver International Film Festival. It was nominated for five Genie Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Lead Actor (Rubinek) and Best Picture. It spawned a short-lived TV series of the same name that aired on the CBC in 1989.

By: Andrew McIntosh