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A Price Above Rubies Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 12 Reviews)
Loved it! A New Perspective On a Tabu Subject !!!
This movie really allows one to think outside the box! A seemingly tabu subject brought out into the open. Not a movie for the closed minded. For those with an opened mind, this movie is entertaining and thought provoking!!! Highly Recommended!!!
Missed opportunity
I was excited about renting this movie, because the world of Hasidic Jews is not often explored in the cinema. I expected something multidimensional and eye-opening. The movie started off well. It had some interesting twists, like Sonia's conversations with her childhood friend. But the characters turned out to be talking heads. They have no depth. They are humanized stereotypes. Sonia's husband is portrayed as stiff-necked, sexually repressed Jewish schoolmaster. The rest of the characters are "extras". They have one collective soul, one collective attitude, which is probably the effect that the director was going for. I can tell that the director has a huge chip on his shoulder. It's obvious that he hates anything remotely traditional. Apparently, only secular Jews deserve sympathy. Orthodox Jews are portrayed as arrogant and secluded. What can be more "liberating" for poor little Sonia than an affair with a hip urban hispanic artist? What a shame. This could have been a serious movie.
wonderful for its performances and subject matter
This brings to mind "My Name is Asher Leve". If you like Chaim Potok's books, you will like a Price Above Rubies, for it has some of the same elements in this tale of a person who doesn't quite fit in the society in which they were born. There is also the mystical elements that remind one of "The Book of Lights." This movie is a good dramatization of the break that sometimes happens between the individual and society.
As for performances, Zellweiger is wonderful as Sonya. Julianna M. ditto as the conservative and fiercely protective Rachel. I went through the movie frustrated by the characterization of the husband, particularly when he refuses to listen or deal with Sonya. But then at the end, when he is so innocently looking at all the religious relics in Ramon's house, and then tells Sonya to come and visit their son, you can see the goodness in him and that he is well deserving of the tzaddik name. Likewise the Rabbi and his wife were also good and accepting people. It is only a few individuals who can't look beyond personal interests who were bad, not the religion or community as a whole. The brother is well played as an interesting and complex villian.
While I'm sure this was no favorite in the Orthodox community, it isn't Orthodoxy that is at fault -- indeed, Orthodoxy is redeemed by Mendel's behavior at the end, when he accepts her for what she is and they part respectfully and by the council of the Rebbe and his wife. It is simply that Sonya was searching for something that she could not find in her own community.
Definitely watch this movie if you are interested in such themes. You will find it worth the time.
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