Unorthodox--A Four-Part Film By Maria Schrader

In an age of cacophony, we forget how much emotion and story can be communicated with eyes and body language.  Unorthodox (Netflix, 2020) conveys so much of its power in the faces of the characters, and in scenes that illuminate the strangeness of the Hasidic Jewish community known as Satmar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  At the center of the plot is a woman trying to escape and fashion a future for herself in a faraway city in another country.  The miniseries, created by Anna Winger and Alexa Karolinski based on the memoir by Deborah Feldman, and directed by Maria Schrader, rests on the capable shoulders of an extraordinary cast, led by Shira Haas as Esther “Esty” Shapiro.  In the first episode, Esty has decided to run away from her arranged marriage to Yanky, played by Amit Rahav, and seek out the mother she thinks abandoned her when she was young.  Esty’s journey takes her to Berlin, where she finds a new and promising world, one that also includes in its history the destruction of millions of Jewish lives, an event that haunts her and the community from which she is fleeing even now, more than 75 years later.  Can one ever escape the past?  That is the question running through the four-part series.

Shira Haas is transcendent.  She plays a tiny, fierce woman of nineteen who has been denied an education and is forced to live a sheltered, suffocating existence in which bearing children, keeping house, and pleasing Yanky are her sole responsibilities.  When she cannot consummate her marriage and get pregnant, her mother-in-law becomes involved.  She is subjected to uncomfortable and embarrassing sex lessons from a woman in the community charged with educating inexperienced, virgin brides on how to please their men according to the precepts of Torah and Talmud.  The community is claustrophobic, depriving Esty of air.

Esty relies on her non-Jewish piano teacher to help her plan her escape.  She knows her mother, Leah, lives in Berlin, and she has paperwork that will allow her to establish citizenship in Germany.  Her teacher secures an airline ticket and other documents she needs to flee.  Before leaving, the teacher gives her a compass, an important symbol for Esty finding her way.  Yanky and his sketchy cousin, Moishe, threaten the teacher as they attempt to track Esty down and forcibly take her back to Williamsburg.

Once Esty makes it to Berlin, the world seems to open up before her.  She is astounded by all she sees.  Her mother lives with another woman—Esty spies her on the street—a relationship forbidden in her old world.  Feeling she cannot abide her mother’s living arrangement, she instead seeks out shelter at a nearby music school.  There, she meets several students who take her to a popular beach.  After wading into the water and throwing away the awful wig she was forced to wear in her old life, her shaved head and her uniqueness bring her acceptance with these new friends.  She is transformed, baptized into a new life.

The writers and director take the time to develop the reunion between mother and daughter.  Leah is full of remorse for not being part of Esty’s life, but the child was literally ripped from her in a battle with her Hasidic alcoholic husband.  Theirs was also an arranged marriage.  Esty goes through a range of emotions before coming to accept and understand what happened in the past.  Again, her internal conflict between her old and new worlds often plays across her face and in her eyes.

 Meanwhile, in a too-convenient plot point, a professor from the music school offers Esty a chance to audition for a scholarship.  One can overlook the convenience of the plot for the heightened dramatic tension it creates:  Moishe and Yanky stalk her around Berlin; she struggles to rekindle her relationship with her mother; she discovers she is pregnant, which makes Yanky’s mission to get her back all the more urgent.  Having a child raises her value to him and the community.

The conclusion is stunning.  The surprises regarding her audition are unexpected and transformative.  The showdown between Yanky and his now very different wife reflects the hard choices we must make between happiness and family duty.  It is exhilarating to see Esty’s story play out in Berlin, a welcomed change from the closeness of her Brooklyn life.  One of her new music school friends asks her why she did not go to one of the excellent music schools in New York.  Sometimes even a big city can be a small world when one is a prisoner.  Berlin, a city of tragic history for Esty, also offers a brave new world that she can make her own on her own terms.