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Unorthodox

Posted on May 22, 2020May 25, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “Unorthodox,” TV Series, May, 2020, Netflix.  Yes, we finally got Netflix.  This 4-part series is loosely based on the memoir of the same name by Deborah Feldman.  It follows Esther “Etsy” (the amazing Shira Haas) as she fleas the hidebound, ultra-Orthodox Satmar religious community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  Starved for both experience and affection, the newlywed suffocates under the extreme repression of both women and individualism of any sort in this sect.  She uses German nationality papers to flee to Berlin where her mother has resettled following her flight from an unhappy arranged marriage in the same community.  As she explains to a student who asks why she left, “God wanted too much of me.”  She has to make her way by her wiles and the talents she has carved out in Brooklyn despite rigid prohibitions, even as her husband and his cousin seek to return her to Brooklyn.    The tiny Haas is a coiled, intense presence in this exciting story.   The story’s remarkably kind conclusion came as a surprise to me.

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