 | |
List Price: $9.99 | | Label: Miramax
Salesrank: 44016
Released: January 18, 2000 |
| Our Price: $3.86 |
| Used Price: $2.89 |
|
MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
|
Editorial Review:
This widely acclaimed motion picture features outstanding performances from Renee Zellweger (JERRY MAGUIRE, BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY) and Julianna Margulies (TV's ER, THE NEWTON BOYS). Sonia (Zellweger) is a young woman who always did just what was expected: she married the right man, moved to the right neighborhood, and had a beautiful baby. And yet, when she discovers an exciting world beyond her tightly knit community, it sparks a growing desire for independence that threatens the security of the perfect life she knows. See A PRICE ABOVE RUBIES for yourself, and learn why critics and audiences nationwide have praised this passionate movie gem!
A Price Above Rubies Reviews:
Hasidic bad boy Chris 
2009-05-22 - The reason to watched this movie is Christopher Eccleston's Doctor Who - The Complete First Series portrayal of the villainous Sender Horowitz, the protagonist's amoral, sexual blackmailer of a brother-in-law. He is simply mesmerizing and so spot-on that I am compelled to periodically watch it just to see him in action, complete with yamulke!
Rubies is a Jewish mysticism/chick flick (if that genre exists) starring Renee Zellweger as Sonia, a Jewess who is very unhappily married to a fervent Hasidic scholar. Renee's blushes and burning cheeks are very overdone. It's hard to believe that the affection starved Sonia doesn't enjoy Sender's sexual attentions just a little given the plot set-up.
The film does a good job of depicting Jewish family life on the lower East side of NYC, Shabbat's dinners, etc. Julianna Margulies turns in a very believable performance as Zellweger's sister-in-law. Sadly, as the plot progresses the more muddled it gets. Apparently the director is trying to evoke the imaginary aspects of a Marc Chagall painting with Sonia's brothers ghost and a kindly guiding spirit floating around in the plot. However, Sonia's burning sexuality is the snake in this garden. Too bad the director just didn't acknowledge that, it could have been a much better movie since it deals with universal issues, heightened by fundamentalist beliefs. Oh well, bye bye sexy Sender, on to the 9th Dr. Who.
A Closed Society 
2009-04-12 - "A Price Above Rubies"
A Closed Society
Amos Lassen
Sonia Horowitz (Renee Zellweger) is a young woman married to a devout Jew. She wants something more out of life and this causes trouble in her marriage. The couple lives in a closed Hasidic community and Sonia feels that the religious rules and restrictions are too much for her and she upsets the relatives by constantly breaking them. Sonia is in a constant struggle with emotional and sexual frustration as she tries to cope with the extreme ideals of her husband, Mendel (Glenn Fitzgerald) who holds God above all. Mendel is a good man, a holy man but he is zealous to please God and live according to His laws and words. In doing so, he neglects his wife but he is blind to that because of his religious fervor. His devotion to God is so encompassing and consuming that he is unable to meet the needs of his wife and he is not even aware of this.
Sonia is a good wife and mother and she loves God but she is unable to affect Mendel's degree of self sacrifice and devotion. He is more spiritual while she has feelings of discontent and wants to rise above the fact that women are considered non-entities. Her life begins to change when her brother-in-law, Sender (Christopher Eccleston) steps in on her behalf. Sender sees something in Sonia that he compares to a price above rubies but he and she both realize that there is little that he can do and her life becomes more and more complicated.
Zellweger gives a wonderful performance as Sonia and we feel her exasperation and lack of self-esteem and acknowledgement. She is not motivated by selfishness but by a desire to be able to function as a woman and to be herself as part of a larger whole. She pursues recognition and equality and she is not on an ego quest for autonomy and this is why we can sympathize with her. She does not want out sympathy; she wants credibility in her actions and in her reactions.
Fitzgerald as Mendel is a man that you really have no feelings about--you do not like him or dislike him because he has such integrity of character.
The characterizations are authentic and this is to the credit of director, Boaz Yakin. I found the feminist perspective to be totally realized without belittling the men in any way and this, I think, is what makes the movie so powerful. To the Orthodox Jewish community that found this film to be an incorrect picture of the way they live, I say that Orthodoxy is monolithically benign. We know that this is not the case. Traditional thought and practice has its beauties and its strengths--I know, I was raised that way. But it also has a dark side and this is what the Orthodox refuse to acknowledge. In "A Price Above Rubies", the balance between light and dark is torn asunder.
Humans have the right to be different. When one breaks from the norm of traditional practice as Sonia did, she was labeled as a heretic. She found it difficult to conform and there is a battle inside of her. She has to live with her identity as well as think about the people she loves before she can try to free herself from rules and commitments.
The world of Orthodox Jews is a foreign world to most people and to see it on the screen is probably a first. Yakin brings Hasidim into focus and we see that is more than men on black suits wearing funny hats and women with covered heads. It is a way of life according to the teachings of rabbis and scholars. Women obey their fathers and their husbands and the entire group shuns the customs of the secular outside world. They live within their walls of traditions and rules. There is little room for compromise and herein lies the problem--not so much for them but for us. Sonia cannot live in this world but it is her world. Several Orthodox Jewish groups have protested the film mainly because of the circumcision scene. I do not understand why--I have been to many just like the one in the film. I guess the Orthodox do not want to be seen as exotic outsiders which is exactly what they are.
Upsetting
2009-04-06 - As a Jewish woman, this film gave me the willies. It's not that I disrespect all Hasidim Jews, as I've never been around them, but I do disrespect all fundamentalist religions, regardless of which ones they are, and this portrayed a very fundamentalist Jewish family. A nutty husband who hadn't a clue about women's sexuality. That didn't make sense. The Kabbalah, four important Jewish mystical books that Jewish men study, teaches that it is imperative that a man must satisfy his wife sexually, and that her sexual feelings come even before his. This is ignored in the film.
This husband is oblivious to anything about a woman. He is an ignorant jerk. So is his brother-in-law, a thief and his snotty wife. What pompous irritating people they are. I doubt that all Hasidim are this way, but I've read a few true stories, and some of this story probably doesn't fall too far from the truth. Thank goodness, the vast majority of all Jews think nothing like they did.
Renee Zelwegger, one of my favorite actresses, who can portray almost any character was very good, and that was the best part of the whole film. Actually, I thought all the actors were good. I didn't understand a few things. Who was the old woman in the black dress? Why did the little boy keep appearing, and what was he supposed to represent? I didn't get that part. The film falls between fantasy and reality, and if you like that sort of film, you will like this one. The best part was that the wife got away from her crazy family.
My advice to her would be to find a sharp gentile non Catholic lawyer so she could a legal divorce and get her son back and away from those crazy people.
Excellently done! 
2008-08-05 - I love how Renee Zellwegger portrayed Sonia's bravery in a so-called sacred but trully cruel envioronment.
Voyeuristic
2007-06-04 -
I find this movie very soapy and the cash business within the community is fascinating. I have no idea if this movie is offensive to the Orthodox Jewish community but I am just nosy.
