Unorthodox: Insular Insight

Back in March when everyone (including me) was obsessed with Tiger King, another Netflix show was quietly getting some praise but not as much notoriety. It took me a while but I finally got around to watching Unorthodox, and wow. Talk about a gut punch of a show. Despite the majority of the show taking place in Williamsburg, just a few miles away from where I live now, I was introduced to a whole new world. If you're a New Yorker, you've definitely see Hasidic men and women walking around the city. When I was a medical student, I even had some Hasidic patients, and would routinely curse the Sabbath elevator every Friday evening when I accidentally got on it and had to get off when I realized it was going to stop on every single floor. But that was the extent of my knowledge of this community. This show took me deep into the underbelly, revealing how they live their lives, the rules and regulations that bind them, and the bizarre ways that such ancient, patriarchal traditions persist in our modern age. 

Loosely based on the memoir by Deborah Feldman, the series tells the story of Esther "Esty" Shapiro (played by the formidable Shira Haas), a 19-year-old woman who has grown up in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Williamsburg. Like other women in the community, there is no expectation that she will get an education and a career. Instead, her marriage is arranged to Yanky (the wonderful Amit Rahav, who manages to make this impossibly irritating character strangely compelling), and the expectation is that they will embark on their life's work to have many children to replace the millions of lives lost during the Holocaust. However, Esty gradually realizes that she cannot live like this. When she was a child, her mother fled this oppressive community and moved to Berlin, and now Esty, who has harshly judged her mother all her life, discovers that she is fated to follow in her mother's footsteps.

I won't say anything further - this is a tense drama that moves back and forth between Esty's current dilemma of fleeing from Williamsburg and learning how to live in the real world, and the events that led her to this point. The majority of the show is in Yiddish, shifting to German when the action moves to Berlin, and at one point someone remarks on how Esty doesn't even sound like a New Yorker despite growing up in Brooklyn all her life. It is indeed remarkable how she could have grown up in one of the most liberal cities on the planet and yet be subjected to such an incredibly insular and restricted life. Thinking back on the series, I am somewhat flabbergasted that it is only four episodes long, because so much that happens within those four hours. It is a rich, dense, and complicated story and it is unlike anything you will have seen before.

Directed by Maria Schrader, Unorthodox is an unflinching portrayal of how we continue to treat women in our society today and the many ways in which religion can serve as an excuse to limit people's rights. The series is elegantly shot, features a beautiful soundtrack that will sink into your bones, and every actor is a revelation. The focus is understandably on Esty and her harrowing journey, but it does also occasionally offer up Yanky's perspective and showcases how this man has also been so screwed up by his upbringing. Of course, he will never suffer as much as Esty, and his options and freedoms are nowhere near as curtailed as hers, but it serves as a reminder that a society that doesn't value women is a society that fails every member. This is a powerful, wonderful, and brilliant series, and I need to read Feldman's memoir ASAP so I can spend even more time wallowing in this world. 

Stateless: Rousing & Relevant

The miniseries is a format that I am appreciating more and more. It requires a limited commitment from the viewer, wrapping up its tale in a defined number of episodes, and as such, it tells that tale with a poise and incisive sharpness that is missing when you have to churn out season after season and are scrambling for storylines. Last week, thanks to a recommendation from my friend Cleo, I binged Stateless, a six-episode miniseries that tells the story of four people whose paths cross in an Australian immigration detention center. Written by Elise McCredie and Belinda Chayko, directed by Emma Freeman and Jocelyn Moorhouse, and with Cate Blanchett serving as one of the executive producers (along with having a small but powerful supporting role), this show is also an enterprise led by women, which we could always use more of in the world.

Set in the Australian Outback in the fictional Barton Detention Center, Stateless tells the story of four very different characters who will all wring your heart in different ways. There's Sofie (played by Yvonne Strahovski, who you may know from Chuck or The Handmaid's Tale, who is just resplendent in this role), an Australian citizen who ends up in this Detention Center for reasons that are slowly doled out over the course of the series and become increasingly horrifying even though you can sense what is coming from the very beginning. Then there's Ameer (Faysal Bazzi, who needs to get about a dozen more job offers STAT), an Afghan refugee who fled to Australia with his wife and two daughters to seek asylum and is now going to have to navigate the complexities of the country's immigration policies. On the administrative side, there's Claire (Asher Keddie, an Australian actress I hadn't heard of who needs to be in All. The. Things.) who works for the Department of Immigration and has been deployed to Barton to manage the myriad PR issues they have on their hands. And finally there's Cam (Jai Courtney, who generally plays blokey action heroes, but here demonstrates a wounded vulnerability that breaks your heart as the series goes on), who gets a job as a security guard at Barton, and experiences how the stress of this environment can erode his humanity. 

The series is based on true events, which makes it all the more shocking, and the writing is compassionate and intricate, weaving together all these strands to reveal the horrors of Australia's mandatory detention policy and the way it treats asylum seekers. It attacks the issue from all angles, showcasing what conditions are like both for the detainees but also the officials in charge of their care. In our current environment, where there has been a lot of talk about police brutality and "some bad apples," this show is quick to reveal how "one bad apple spoils the bunch," which is the full saying that so many people forget to mention. Even though Cam is a decent man who initially engages with the detainees and treats them kindly, the attitude of one cruel colleague (played by Rachel House, who seems like such a delightful woman in real life, but always seems to be playing villains) quickly leads him down a destructive path that will ruin him and his family. Ameer's story is utterly heartbreaking and yet all too common, and brings home the fact that this is only one story amongst those of the 80 million displaced people across the world today. Claire's evolution over six episodes reveals how seemingly heartless bureaucrats eventually have to come to terms with the supposedly fair and excellent policies they are being made to enforce. And Sofie's story is a reminder that while millions of refugees flee the developing world each year in search of a better life, there are still plenty of horrors in the developed world that can make a woman want to disappear.

Stateless is an empathetic and searing series that should rack up all the awards over the coming year if I have anything to say about it (which I don't, but oh well). It is so profoundly moving, and when the end titles came up on screen at the end of six hours, I needed a cry because I was emotionally overwhelmed. I know a lot of people aren't looking for something like that right now, but this really is an elegant and beautiful masterclass in cinematic storytelling - maybe don't binge it like I did but dole it out to yourself over a few weeks. It is an urgent and necessary story that is devastating and remarkable and I cannot recommend it highly enough. 

Movie Roundup Part 3: Spelling the Dream, Eurovision, Greyhound

In the final installment of this week’s quickfire movie reviews, I’ve saved my personal favorite for last. Your weekend awaits, let’s go!

Spelling the Dream: Have you been craving a documentary about the Indian-American kids who dominate the Scripps National Spelling Bee every year? Well good news, Netflix has you covered! This is a lighthearted look at how Indian-Americans increasingly took over the Bee, some of which you may already know if you’ve ever read articles about the South Asian spelling circuit and various ways in which these immigrant families developed their own training ground to help their kids go pro. There’s a great deal of focus on how none of these kids are being forced into this racket - these are fellow nerds who love word etymologies and languages and have just demonstrated an early interest and aptitude in spelling that their parents have fostered. Of course, being an Indian myself, I have deep cynicism about what may be going on in these families when the cameras are turned off, but we’ll set that aside for now. There are also interviews with Indian-American celebrities who talk about what it means to have all this South Asian representation at the Bee and some of the racist rhetoric that it has invoked. This is an interesting, engaging documentary, and while it tries to dive into some deep questions, ultimately, you’ll just stare mouth agape as some young kid spells some ridiculous word you’ve never heard of and start to rifle through your dictionary.

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga: OK, yes, this movie is splendidly wacky because it is about Eurovision, which is the most insane spectacle human beings have ever concocted to date. But what that means is that this is the perfect movie to watch with a friend so you can giggle over how bonkers and wonderful it is. And also get the song Jaja Ding Dong stuck in your head (which apparently has become a legitimate hit on Icelandic radio, because Icelanders have an excellent sense of humor). Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams star as Lars and Sigrit, two Icelandic musicians who have always dreamed of performing in the Eurovision Song Contest. Through a series of mishaps, they actually manage to make it, but as you can imagine there are a lot of stumbling blocks, onstage disasters, romantic misunderstandings, and the involvement of murderous elves. Yeah, don’t expect that last bit to make sense. My friend Peggy (who is in California) and I watched this “together” on Netflix and our texts back and forth were about how cozy all the Icelandic knitwear looked, how much we loved ABBA, and why on earth anyone as hot as Rachel McAdams would be pining for a loon like Will Ferrell. But of course, she’s the heart and soul of the movie and it is wonderful to finally have her grace my screen in something as silly and fun as this film. Pierce Brosnan also has a stint playing Ferrell’ s father, with an Icelandic accent that was described in one article as “constipated.” I mean, how could you not want to watch this movie after that?

Greyhound: This is the movie that surprised and delighted me the most out of everything else I’ve watched recently. It would be my pick for an Oscar contender, though I desperately wish I could have seen it on the big screen. Starring Tom Hanks (who also wrote the screenplay, because he is just too impressive for his own good) and based on a novel by C.S. Forster, this is a tense World War II naval epic about a supply convoy of ships trying to cross the North Atlantic in an area known as the “Black Pit” where they cannot get any air cover for 4-5 days and therefore must fend for themselves if they encounter any German U-boats intent on torpedoing them. Hanks plays Commander Ernie Krause, who is leading a destroyer (codename: GREYHOUND) across this stretch of ocean for the first time, and once the convoy comes under attack, you simply cannot move your eyes from the screen. This might as well be a foreign language film: I did not understand a single word the men were uttering as they desperately tried to attack the enemy and avoid coming under fire. It is all a barrage of technical jargon, but there is a palpable sense of urgency and fear and frenetic action that will hold you in thrall throughout. Also, apparently this is what compasses and protractors were used for in real life once you graduated from your high school Geometry class. It’s a visceral movie, where you shiver as you watch the window wipers frozen on the glass, duck as a hail of bullets sail past, and can almost smell the aroma of the hot coffee that the captain gets as his sole source of relief as he struggles to stay awake and stay one step ahead of the Nazis. It’s a spectacular war movie, and the focus on the Naval efforts is something I haven’t often seen onscreen so it felt novel. It’s also a remarkably quick watch, but it’s an experience that will soak into your brain for a while. It will truly transport you into another time and place, and that is something I am seeking more than anything these days. 

Movie Roundup Part 2: Hamilton, Da 5 Bloods, Desperados

In the second installment of this week’s movie reviews, I offer up a seriously eclectic selection - if you can’t find anything to love here, the problem might just be you. Challenge accepted!

Hamilton: So I imagine that all of America watched this on July 4 weekend, right? But maybe you’re one of the few who hasn’t bothered yet. Well, I’m here to tell you that all the hype is true. I entered the digital ticket lottery almost every day for four years to see this show on Broadway and never won. But now, I finally got to see this mythical performance starring the musical’s original cast. It was filmed in June 2016, when Obama was still President and the world was full of hope. In an interview about the show, creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda spoke about how this musical has evolved over the years. The tone and emotion that people associate with it is so different now than when it first debuted, but one thing remains constant: it’s a staggering feat of musical genius. I have purposefully never listened to the cast album, always dreaming of the day I would get to see these songs performed on stage, and it was a revelation to watch these actors spit out intricate lyrics whilst weaving through a revolving stage and conveying emotion and pathos and levity and somehow managing to keep the audience engaged in a story about American history and the Constitution. I have never cared about the Federalist Papers more than at this moment. This cast is phenomenal, these songs and their lyrics are sublime, and this is a beguiling and magical production from beginning to end. Just watch it already, you no longer have any excuse.

Da 5 Bloods: This is Spike Lee’s latest movie and it follows a group of Black Vietnam War veterans who return to Vietnam to find some gold they buried there long ago. Given the cultural moment we’re in, this movie has been hailed as a masterpiece by a lot of folk and Delroy Lindo is already a frontrunner in the Oscar race for his searing and complicated performance as a Black veteran suffering from PTSD who voted for Trump and is often sporting a MAGA hat. I mean, there's a character you don’t see everyday. It’s a classic Spike Lee joint, which unfortunately means it was not something I loved. It was too long, too erratic, too bizarre for my liking. The sociopolitical commentary is vital, but as a movie, I simply could not get engaged. I recently watched Do the Right Thing for the first time, and despite being filmed in 1989, that movie had an urgency and freshness to it that made it feel contemporary and ageless. Da 5 Bloods, in contrast, didn't leave me feeling like this was a life-altering film. When I watch a movie, the story matters to me more than the director’s flair, and in this case, the story didn’t captivate me. But if you are looking to engage in more Black content and Spike Lee is your man, this film is a guaranteed slam dunk. It does feature an all-star cast that you rarely get to see assembled in any other Hollywood project, and that alone is worth your time.

Desperados: Those of you who are mad at me for not loving a Spike Lee movie are definitely going to get mad that I am about to recommend anything quite so zany as Desperados. Go ahead and judge me, I have no shame. I know what I like, and a Girls Trip-esque buddy movie where a woman who makes exceedingly bad choices drags her friends off to Cabo so she can find her boyfriend’s computer and delete a drunk email she sent to him is right up my alley. Starring Nasim Pedrad, this is a splendidly escapist piece of cinema that you can indulge in to forget all your current troubles. You can judge these characters but also root for them to succeed and find themselves. It’s ostensibly a romcom and has a terribly cliched ending (sorry, spoiler alert?) but there’s also a real focus on female friendship and the ways in which women can be so blinded by their pursuit of love that they forget the girlfriends who have been by their side through all their trials and tribulations. I once had a supremely irritating conversation with my grandmother who told me the reason I should get married is because all my friends would get married and forget about me. Movies like Desperados give me hope that that won’t be true. After all, my motto has always been hos before bros, and as this film evidences, there is so much more fun you can have with your hos when the bros aren’t around.

Movie Roundup Part 1: The Old Guard, Palm Springs, The King of Staten Island

With the continued shutdown of movie theaters, there have been a LOT of movies popping up on demand or on various streaming services and I have been making my way through them all. As such, I have a three-part installment of movie reviews to share this week. I am still surprised when people tell me they have run out of things to watch, because I am constantly finding new shows or movies I need to see. So my goal is to provide you with a slew of recommendations that run the gamut across genres and plots, and hopefully something will catch your eye to liven up your lockdown. Onwards!

The Old Guard: Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and starring Charlize Theron, this is an adaptation of Greg Rucka's comic book about a group of immortal mercenaries who have served in various conflicts through the millennia. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think this would be my jam. But I forgot how much I love watching Charlize Theron be a badass. Large swathes of this movie feel like watching Mad Max: Fury Road, and the fantasy element and questions about the ramifications of immortality on these weary soldiers allow for a great deal of philosophical debate. After all, when you cannot die, what drives your morality? What do you take a stand for? It’s all fascinating, but this is also a massively violent movie. The amount of killing and blood spraying across the screen is not for the faint of heart, but the stunt choreography is stunning, almost balletic in spots, and I could forever watch Charlize charging across screen with a sword in one hand and a gun in another, making full use of centuries of battle training. The rest of the cast is a veritable who’s who of excellence as well, including such stalwarts as Matthias Schoenaerts, KiKi Layne, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. There’s never a dull moment, and if what you seek is a fun, smart, and extreme action movie, this is for you.

Palm Springs: If you would like a movie with a fantasy element but less gore, Palm Springs might be what you seek. I should start like all the reviews that led me to this movie, which is to say, just go watch it! Don’t know too much about the plot beforehand! It stars Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti and is a charming romcom. But if you insist on knowing more, here is the more spoiler-filled plot description. Nyles and Sarah meet at her sister’s wedding, and the twist is that Nyles is stuck in an infinite time loop where he has been reliving this day, Groundhog Day-style, for eons. He has been stuck in this loop alone, but when Sarah accidentally gets sucked into it too, what follows is a sweet romance (to be clear, it does have its raunchy moments, so don't watch with kids or prudes) as well as a rumination on how to find meaning in your life. For those of us who have been in lockdown for months and feel like we are living the same day over and over again, there’s much to reflect on here, and there’s also an interesting take on the different approaches these two characters take to deal with their circumstances. There’s the despair, the weary resignation, and then the fight to do something about it all. JK Simmons also has an incredible supporting turn in the film that I will not spoil, except to say that he is fabulous. All in all, this is a lovely palate cleanser of a film that has some surprises and a lot of heart.

The King of Staten Island: A classic Judd Apatow movie starring Pete Davidson, you might already know what you’re getting with this film. Davidson plays Scott, a high-school dropout who lives with his mom (the wonderful Marisa Tomei) and sister on Staten Island and harbors dreams of opening up a tattoo restaurant. This is a restaurant where you could get a tattoo while you get your meal. Yeah, most people who hear this idea also react with befuddlement. This movie is...fine. As with any Apatow movie, I thought it was too long, and was ultimately too invested in a central man-boy character that I was less interested in than the supporting characters in his periphery. Tomei gets to branch out in this movie and have a lovely romance and come into her own as a widow who is finally ready to get on with her life. Bel Powley has a truly fascinating turn as Scott’s on-again off-again girlfriend who harbors genuine ambition beyond this relationship and doesn’t let this weirdo define her identity (sidenote: she is British, yet has the most amazing Staten Island swagger and accent you can imagine). I didn’t find the film particularly incisive or memorable, but it certainly is one way to kill a few hours and get some jokes and some family drama. If you’re generally a fan of Apatow’s work or have been fascinated by Davidson’s shenanigans on Saturday Night Live, this could be worth your time.

Floor Is Lava: That's All You Need to Know

Over the past week, I kept hearing about Floor Is Lava, a new game show on Netflix. People kept raving about how silly but wonderful it was. So over the weekend, I took the plunge. I visited my parents in the middle of my binge, so I made them watch it with me too, and by the end, my mom couldn't walk across the living room without me yelling, "Noooo, the floor is LAVA!"

The show is based on a game you may have played as a child, where you pretended the floor was bubbling with lava; so to get from one part of the room to another, you had to jump on furniture and navigate across without touching the floor. The show has taken that simple concept, and elevated it to a bonkers game show level. Here, teams consisting of two to three players are introduced to a room that is filled with 80,000 gallons of roiling, slippery "lava." Each room has a theme, like "kitchen," "bedroom," or a "planetarium" complete with a flat Earth and lunar module. These rooms are filled with obstacles and teams have to devise a path to get from the entrance to the exit without falling into the lava. There are always multiple paths, and usually teammates need to split up, because one path will lead to a key that helps to open up another path and make it easier to get to the exit. 

First off, the set design is brilliantly inventive. There's a lot of joy that went into designing these rooms, and you have to appreciate the silly puns (see the aforementioned flat Earth) that abound as teams make their way. There's also constant commentary from the show's host, Rutledge Wood, who is hyper-enthusiastic and having way more fun that anyone else as he gently mocks everyone on their deadly journey. And then, of course, there's the lava. Its composition is a proprietary secret, but they have done a wonderful job of making it glow and bubble, and it is horrifically slippery and makes every course a hundred times more difficult to navigate as it covers the obstacles and make them even harder to traverse. 

Which brings us to the teams. These people have fully bought into the silly, fun insanity and they are game for anything. When someone slips and falls into the lava, their teammates will scream in despair (whilst also giggling) as though this truly is the end for that person and that they won't shortly be reunited in the team interview after the course is complete. Everyone playing this game is perfectly pleasant, but what I find truly fascinating about this show are the gender dynamics at play.

In order to win, you want to get as many teammates across to the exit without dying. And if there's a tie (i.e. two teams all managed to get one person across), then the tiebreaker is who managed to get across fastest. As a result, you need to be quick but also cooperate. When teams are composed solely of men, there's a tendency towards "every man for himself." Which means that almost no one makes it across and everyone dies a fiery death. However, if you have an all-women team, or at least one woman on your team, there's a much more collaborative strategy. And that's something you quickly learn as you binge watch ten episodes of Floor Is Lava. Yes, it helps to be hyper-flexible with great upper body strength so you can sashay along monkey bars and lunge across six-foot jumps. But even if you're not that fit, you can survive the course if everyone lends each other a helping hand. Sometimes, all you need is someone to catch you as you take a running leap on to an ottoman, or someone behind you to push you on the giant canoe so that you have enough momentum to jump to the exit. The women inherently seem to understand this and will strategize to ensure everyone can make it across. And sometimes, they will sacrifice themselves so that their teammates have an easier time getting across. As opposed to a lot of the men, for whom each course is just a personal showcase for brute strength, which inevitably leads to a face full of lava.

Yes I know, Floor Is Lava is a silly game show and not some great social science experiment. But as my friend Laura joked, the people on this show who aren't looking out for each other are probably the same ones who are currently walking around refusing to wear a mask. Given that we are all currently stuck indoors, this show serves as a great microcosm of humanity and the different personalities at play as we become increasingly reliant on global cooperation to get through a crisis. Wait, did this blog post suddenly become a public health manifesto? Never mind. Back to the matter at hand. Floor Is Lava is a raucous good time. If you're bored at home, this is a great way to while away a few hours. I just fast forwarded straight to the courses as I didn't care for team introductions and whatnot, so you can set your own pace through this show. But by the end, I guarantee you might start clambering on your sofa or swiveling on your office chair as you try to hop on to your bed. Why? Because the Floor. Is. Lava!