Künstlers in Paradise

"Cathleen Schine’s latest social comedy, Künstlers in Paradise, involves “glamorous exile,” as multiple generations of a family shelter in Los Angeles from the Holocaust and, decades later, the COVID-19 pandemic. When 24-year-old Julian heads west in February 2020 to help his 93-year-old grandmother, “Mamie” Künstler, after a fall, he has no idea he’ll be trapped in her Venice Beach bungalow for months. Mamie seizes the opportunity to open the eyes of her whiny, floundering grandson with stories of her family’s harrowing flight from Vienna in 1939, their luck in landing in Hollywood and their adaptation to American life. Schine’s moving tale about how shared memories forge connections is lightened by witty repartee, a wry, breezy tone and fun cameos by Greta Garbo and Arnold Schoenberg."