The Tenants directed by Danny Green, English, 2006, color, 97 minutes.

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO, Calif.— This adaptation of a book by Bernard Malamud is the story of two writers, one a Jew, the other a Black.  For years novelist Harry Lesser (Dylan McDermott) has lived and worked alone in a Brooklyn tenement building, the last holdout against Mr. Levenspiel (Seymour Cassel), the  landlord, who constantly  pleads for Lesser to move so he can at last sell the building to a developer.  His reclusive life is interrupted, however, when an aspiring Black writer Willie Spearmint (Snoop Dogg) decides to create a writing nook illegally in a nearby apartment. 

Despite Spearmint's continuous foul-mouthing of the Jews—in particular not using "Jew" properly as a noun, but as a derogatory adjective—he and Lesser become social acquaintances. However, this particular relationship can never become a friendship; Spearmint has too much anger against Whites, and Lesser has too little insight, too little interest, or too little courage, even after reading Spearmint's manuscript, to engage the African-American in a heart-to-heart discussion about his deeply passionate views.  Instead, the only comments Spearmint can drag from Lesser about his manuscript are tentative, vague, critiques of the form of the novel.  Frustrated, and enraged, Spearmint verbally lashes out.

Spearmint also fails to respond to Lesser's deeply-felt pain.  When Lesser has had enough of Spearmint's anti-Semitic diatribes, he tells Spearmint, "cut out that Jew stuff," but the plea has little effect. When Lesser has a chance meeting with Irene at an art museum, he cautions his co-religionist to get away from Spearmint, advice she ignores.  Thereafter, his concern for her grows into infatuation and then—or so he thinks—love.  But as we watch this relationship develop, we are reminded of Lesser's and Irene's first meeting, when she asked the shy, serious, novelist what he writes about.  "Love," he responds.  "What do you know about love?" she challenges. As it turns out, this was a very perceptive question.

Irene's and Lesser's relationship develops in an unorthodox way.  Mary (Nikki Crawford), a beautiful Black woman whom Lesser had met at a social gathering at his apartment, boldly invites him at another party in the neighborhood to go next door with her to have sex—an invitation he accepts. Their departure is noticed by Mary's boyfriend Sam (Aldis Hodge), who, on their return, is mad enough to kill him.  Spearmint and the other party-goers, all of whom are Black except for Irene, angrily surround Lesser.  

Spearmint calls Lesser a volley of foul names, challenging him to answer in kind.  Although words are Lesser's forté, he cannot compete in the "dissing" contest, where words are valued not for their nuances, but for their viciousness.  And though he is again subjected to anti-Semitic slurs, Lesser declines to answer in kind.  Whether for safety in such a crowd, or out of genuine distaste for racist slurs, Lesser holds his tongue, never descending to the level of  racist name-calling.  Eventually, Irene intervenes, asking to leave.  Spearmint rudely orders her to leave without him—confirming in Lesser's mind that Spearmint has no real regard for his Jewish girlfriend, that she is just a possession to be paraded in front of his Black friends.

The next day, Spearmint is back at Lesser's apartment, acting as if their relationship is unchanged.  Rather than being apologetic for the scene the night before, he tells Lesser that he has done him a favor.  If he hadn't turned the situation into one of words, he explains, there would have been physical violence.  In essence, by humiliating Lesser to salve the feelings of Sam and his friends, he had prevented physical violence.  Lesser responded by thanking him.  As Lesser had been protecting Spearmint from the landlord (a Jew who, unlike Lesser, routinely uses racist words to describe Blacks), the score, you might say, has been evened.

However, the scene has been set for the ultimate rivalry, the competition over Irene, with Lesser attending a play in which she is performing, later seducing her, and eventually surprising her, and DVD watchers, by asking her to marry him.  Furthermore, he wants her to tell Spearmint about their relationship, or allow him to do so, but she pleads for time.  It is clear to everyone, except perhaps Lesser, that Spearmint will react violently to the news.  What is Lesser's motivation?  Does he really love Irene, or does he just want to show up Spearmint?

How the story ends is not to be told here.  What we can ask ourselves, however, is to what degree is this story a metaphor for the relationship between Jews and Blacks?  The two writers, ostensibly, have common interests, as indeed the two minority groups have common interests.  The two groups are willing to have intercourse with each other, both in the sexual and the intellectual sense of the word, but to a large degree they are unwilling to address each other's issues, either dismissing or minimizing them.  

It's important to realize that Malamud wrote the book on which this movie is based back in the 1970s, at a time when Blacks and Jews were becoming increasingly disillusioned with each other, notwithstanding their cooperation in the previous decade in the Civil Rights movement. 

However, this is not just a "period" piece. Many issues between Blacks and Jews continue to be abrasives some 30 years after Malamud wrote the book.  The well-acted movie is a reminder to us that to live and let live is not merely a formula for benign neglect, but an injunction for us to care about our fellow man—whether they be members of our group, or the "other."