Unorthodox on Netflix is: thrilling, surreal, fascinating, tense, tender, revelatory, exhilarating. Or, essentially, Wow!
Set in the present, based on Deborah Feldman’s memoir (fictionalised and dramatised), it begins within a Hasidim community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. There a young woman, Esty (Shira Haas), who has never left the area in her entire 19 years, makes an escape during Shabbat … all the way to Berlin, where Esty discovers the shape of freedom in music-making youth.
The four episodes uncover why she is on the run; in counterpoint the Rebbe has dispatched her husband Yanky (Amit Rahav), a sensitive mommy’s boy, and his cousin, the worldly, cunning thug, Moishe (Jeff Wilbusch) – to do whatever it takes to bring her back.
Photography and production design are superb, costume design is exceptional, acting is excellent across the board. Script and pace are spot on. All so good.
The Williamsburg scenes among the Satmar Hasidim are riveting: the Yiddish speech, the rhythms, rituals and manners; the textures of clothing and furniture; the dynamics between men and women; the “modesty” required of the women.
“You will only have leverage when you have a baby, do you understand?” conveyed with a sympathy uncompromised by false sentiment. Photography and production design are superb, costume design is exceptional, acting is excellent across the board. Script and pace are spot on. All so good.
Memorable set pieces: the purification of the bride to be; the amazing wedding scene; the contrapuntal immersion scene at the beach in Berlin; two family dinners in Williamsburg; two confrontations; the audition.
Two lines of dialogue serve as dialectical symbols of the show. Esty, paraphrasing a rabbi: “If not me, who? If not now, when?” … and this observation, said with grim knowledge: “There’s always a Moishe.”
There’s always a Moishe, yes, but there’s also always an Esty.
Unorthodox is screening now on Netflix.
