This is a very well made movie, breaking through the fiberglass batting insulation of the Hasidic community in Brooklyn, to help us understand the feeling we get when we walk through .
For the month I was there , not one single person of that particular costumed community said as much as a "good day" to me or even made eye contact. I felt like I was in (and in FACT I was in ) a foreign country.
I walked for miles and miles almost every day trying to understand what was giving me this feeling of being a complete alien... I've never been in a community like it in my life before.
It slowly dawned on me that this was the way the culture operates, outsiders are outsiders and there's no way they'll be allowed in.
As I got to the peripheries , close to Prospect Park, the oppressive weight started to lift as the Latino and Italian neighbourhoods smiled back at me and straightened me up.
How can two cultures be so different when they are so close together?
The story told in this series, about a young girl trying to escape the strictures of an arranged marriage, sounds as though it could apply to any of the young Jewish girls I saw pushing strollers with two or three kids hanging on to their apron strings.
It's hard not to be taken aback at the depth of control and the level of obedience imposed on both the men and the women of this sect but it obviously works for most of them, as the community seems to thrive.(Just look at the Amish Community if you want a reference point)
The acting is just superb and the director manages to evoke sympathy for the naive husband who, in a way, is trapped in the same unhappiness.
The girl who plays the lead (Esty) is a wonderful actress who is able to go from beautiful young bride to-be, to a dowdy potential baby factory and back to a free young woman again and she does it convincingly.
The rest of the cast draws us in to the culture in a way that could never happen in real life but in the end you're no closer to understanding why it continues to be so different.
I really enjoyed the story and the portrayals, it has a bittersweet ending and I felt better for having watched it.
