‘One Big Happy Family’ gets laughs from a DNA test surprise

There’s no denying that Jewishness is at the heart of “One Big Happy Family,” a movie opening in October across the U.S. The very first shot? A synagogue. The very first scene? A bat mitzvah.

It’s been a big step for writer, star and producer Lisa Brenner.

“This really has felt for me as a sort of coming out because I was always told to hide my Judaism my whole career,” she told J.

The comedy opens Oct. 3 at AMC theaters in San Francisco, Emeryville, San Jose and Sunnyvale.

The plot revolves around Brenner’s character, a Jewish actress named Rachel who is preparing for her daughter’s bat mitzvah when she makes a startling discovery. A DNA test reveals that Rachel’s biological father is not the father she knows. This throws the 40-year-old into a journey of self-discovery, with her bossy mother along for the ride.

“One Big Happy Family” is based on a true story, said Brenner, a veteran television and film actress who has appeared as recurring characters in multiple soap operas and TV shows since the 1990s. Like her character, Brenner found out later in life that her dad wasn’t her biological father and that she had unexpected half-siblings who are Catholic and Muslim. Also, like her character, she’s an actress who has tucked away her Jewishness — and her last name — in an effort to succeed in the industry.  

With the new film’s release, Brenner’s identity is all out in the open.

“I would like everyone to know that my real last name is Goldstein,” Brenner said.

The main character is not only dealing with an identity crisis. She’s also stressed about getting older and preparing her speech for the bat mitzvah.

“I don’t even know who I am anymore, what I am anymore,” Rachel says in the film. “I’m not even all Jewish! The only thing I ever knew that I was.”

Rachel’s mother, a pivotal role, is played by the late Jewish actress Linda Lavin, who earned two Golden Globes, two Obies and a Tony across her career, as well as several Emmy nominations. Lavin passed away last year, but her deadpan delivery as a self-involved, charismatic and overbearing Jewish mother from Long Island is a huge part of the film.

It was important, Brenner said, that she cast Jewish actors.

“When I was casting my mom, I made sure that she was a Jewish woman,” Brenner said. “Linda Lavin, the blessed, amazing Linda Lavin, is Jewish. And that was one of the most important things to me — to cast authentically Jewish.”

The film also serves up a real slice of Jewish life particular to Southern California, where Judaism is woven into a daily life of school pickups, yoga classes and multicultural families.

“My life is riding in my car, talking on the phone to my mom all day, getting in huge fights with her and then loving her the next second,” Brenner said. “I do have a mixed marriage, and my children are of mixed ethnicity. To me, it’s so normal, and especially living in L.A., that’s just how it is.”

For Brenner, releasing her movie after Oct. 7, 2023, seemed impossible at first. “One Big Happy Family” is a light comedy, while current events are heavy and tragic.

“I said to a friend of mine, ‘I cannot believe here I finally have my Jewish movie. I’m coming out as my Jewish self, and then this happened. It’s so awful, I can’t believe this,’” Brenner said. “And he said to me, ‘Well, maybe it’s the right thing at the right time. Maybe we need to feel laughter and joy and pride in being Jewish.’”

The film debuted at the Miami Jewish Film Festival in January, and the reception was heartwarming, Brenner said.

“To have a movie where you just go in and laugh, and then at the end you’re dancing the hora and celebrating your religion, your family, love — that is what people take away from it,” she said. “That’s what a lot of the Jewish audience is taking away from it.”

Link to article: https://jweekly.com/2025/09/30/one-big-happy-family-gets-laughs-from-a-dna-test-surprise/