Unorthodox (2020)
REVIEW BY: ROBERT CHANDLER
Netflix’ new Original series. UNORTHODOX, subtitled The Scandalous Rejection Of My Hasidic Roots, based on Deborah Feldman's autobiographical book, is compelling and often astonishing.
It tells of Esty, a young Jewish woman, described as an "orphan" by her grandmother and aunt because her mother married outside of the faith, leaves (or rather escapes) her husband and her Brooklyn Hasidic community to travel to Berlin where she hopes to experience secular life.
Shira Haas is excellent as Esty, an actor whose passive expression often carries all the emotion a scene needs (a testament, too, to the quality of the writing). The series runs parallel timelines, the before and after, following Esty as she finds herself increasingly at odds with the traditions and requirements of her Brooklyn community and navigates her way through what might be perceived as "normal life" for young people in the German capital.
Life in Berlin might prove to be good and liberating for Esty, except the community has sent two men to track her down and bring her back: her husband, Yanky, an ineffective, weak, conforming man who has the misfortune to expect Esty to behave as all the other wives and women of the community appear to behave, and Moishe, who seems to be auditioning for Mossad and trying to earn his way back into the community after some as yet undisclosed mishap. Moishe is a good tracker, prepared to threaten people to get the information he wants.
The strength of the series is one can see how the rituals and dogma of the Hasidic community is a buffer against the outside world, a means of keeping the grief of the holocaust alive and vital where many might forget, a way of providing a home and the certainty of unchallenged faith. Yet Esty finds it stifling. She is not like the other women. She is herself and she must listen to that, and she does. And she runs.
There's an excellent scene in episode one when she visits the great Wannsee lake with her new friends in Berlin. They strip eagerly down to bikinis and shorts and rush into the water. One of the friends points out the lakeside villa across the way and tells Esty it's where the Nazis planned the final solution. "And you bathe in the lake?!" Esty asks with incredulity.
Eventually, when Esty cautiously removes her skintone tights, cloddy shoes and patterned blouse, and walks into the lake on her own, in her long skirt and long-sleeved vest, she experiences a quiet, private ecstasy as she removes her wig and lays herself down in the water.
It's a powerful scene. There are many powerful scenes.
I have only seen the first episode and am looking forward to seeing how it pans out. I want Esty to keep her freedom. Four episodes, each of less than an hour.
Recommended.