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My children, it gets worse. "Keeping the Faith" is also Norton's directorial debut, and he shows absolutely no aptitude for the medium. At least two members of the cast (Stiller and Milos Forman, who has a small role as a Czech priest) would have done far better, and hardly anyone could have done worse. The whole movie is shot with that bright, bland, pleasant lighting used in 1970s Wonderful World of Disney TV dramas, and there are several minor technical flubs. Furthermore, with no one around to direct him, Norton seems terribly ill at ease in his undercooked role as Father Brian Finn, a love-struck Catholic priest jealous of his rabbi best friend. (You heard that right, folks.) Trapped in the jittery, nervous, fourth-rate Neil Simon shtick of Stuart Blumberg's screenplay, Father Brian and Rabbi Jake Schram (Stiller) barely seem to know each other, let alone like each other.

Keeping the Faith Directed by Edward Norton Starring Edward Norton, Ben Stiller and Jenna Elfman

Brian and Jake grew up together in Manhattan, Jake collecting Heroes of the Torah playing cards and Brian instructing him in the "spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch" mnemonic for the Sign of the Cross. (I can already tell, people, that my version makes the movie seem funnier than it is.) Their third musketeer was Anna Reilly, a tomboy whom Brian recalls as "a cross between Johnny Quest and Tatum O'Neal in 'Foxes.'" (OK, that actually is sort of funny.) But Anna moved to California, only to return years later, when both guys have become wiseacre clergymen who are reinvigorating their respective faiths in some totally unspecified way. All we know is that they're planning an interfaith senior center that Brian describes as "'Fiddler on the Roof' meets 'Lord of the Dance' meets 'Buena Vista Social Club.'" (Uncle, already! Uncle!)

As you will have guessed, brethren, the grown-up Anna (Jenna Elfman) is a big old babelicious problem. Jake, who comes off more like an unctuous Atlantic City comic than a rabbi, slobbers over her. He's supposed to get married, since synagogue boards don't trust bachelor rabbis, but certainly not to a shiksa like Anna. Brian, who comes off more like the Key Club president than a full-blown priest, also slobbers over her. But it's clear that he's not one of those priests, the ones who cash in on the collar to get laid. Within a few scenes, Anna jeopardizes Jake's career and Brian's vows of chastity, and compels both of these alleged pals to lie, booze it up, brawl and generally betray each other's trust. Then they all say they're sorry and the movie sneaks out through the only plot loophole it can find.

So peculiar is this movie, oh people of the multiplex, that Elfman's mannered and superficial performance as corporate power vixen Anna, stuck between her two daffy clerics, is pretty much the best thing in it. Her cat-eyed cutie-pie thing either slays you or gets your goat, but at least she has an idea about what she's doing and sticks with it. Everybody else in this talented cast seems to have read the script in the morning and shot his scenes in the afternoon, pretty much relying on generic acting chops for survival. Director Mike Figgis is generating a lot of buzz with "Time Code," a film shot live in real time that comes out later this spring, but Norton has gone him one better. "Keeping the Faith" is so agonizingly slow, so full of endless, pointless scenes in which the viewer can do nothing except contemplate the yawning abyss of his own soul, that I swear to you it was shot in less time than it takes to watch it, and then stretched to feature length by diabolical means.

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