'You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah' review: Adam Sandler and family star in charming comedy

WHAT IT'S ABOUT Adam Sandler brings the 2005 young adult novel "You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah" to Netflix in the form of a movie that seems to exist mostly to showcase the talents of his daughters, Sunny and Sadie Sandler, as well as his wife, Jackie Sandler.

Sunny plays Stacy Friedman, a girl on the cusp of her bat mitzvah, trying to manage her anticipation for what simply has to be the world's biggest blowout party, while studying her Torah portion and grappling with familiar middle school dramas involving crushes, popular kids and the like.

Her best friend Lydia Rodriguez Katz (Samantha Lorraine) also has a forthcoming bat mitzvah. They do everything together and have been waiting for this their whole lives, but their plans become complicated when a fight grows into a falling out.

Sadie plays Stacy's older sister, Ronnie, Adam wears a lot of gym shorts and comfortable-looking casual shirts as Friedman dad Danny. Jackie plays Lydia's mother.

None other than Syosset's Idina Menzel joins the Friedman clan as mom Bree. The director is Sammi Cohen (Hulu's "Crush"). And Great Neck's Sarah Sherman ("Saturday Night Live") appears as your standard-issue quirky rabbi.

MY SAY What sounds like an excruciating work of nepotism emerges as something far better: a frothy and lightweight comedy that ends up having something of a genuine heart.

Of course, to get to the substance of the story, which ultimately turns around the question of what becoming an adult really means, you have to endure an avalanche of groan-worthy Jewish jokes, suburban middle school crises, Sandler movie callbacks (one character borrows the catchphrase of the "Billy Madison" bullies, as "O'Doyle rules!" becomes "Goldfarb rules!") and more.

It can be a bit much, especially when Sandler's real-life wife tells her estranged movie husband, played by the inimitable Luis Guzmán, that he should be more like Sandler's character.

It's also, at times, too obvious: Needle dropping Olivia Rodrigo's "Traitor" — a song that literally includes the lyrics "you betrayed me" — right after Stacy angrily hurls the title insult following a Lydia betrayal? Got it.

If there were never another slow-motion shot of the dreamy boy everyone likes in any movie, ever again, that would be fine. This movie has several.

But "You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah" never comes off as being smug or self-absorbed. This isn't just an expensive home movie for the Sandlers. 

At times, the generation-gap humor genuinely works. And there's something sweet about the notion of the movie star dad setting up a project for his daughters, while being willing to be made fun of as a weird, out-of-touch old guy.

There's also one real revelation here: Sunny Sandler is a terrific actor, carrying the movie with a combination of excellent comic timing and the ability to conjure up a real sense of hurt and confusion. 

BOTTOM LINE It's more than just a vanity project.