Main Cast: Renée Zellweger, Christopher Eccleston, Glenn Fitzgerald, Allen Payne, Julianna Margulies
Release Year: 1998
Country: US
Run Time: 120 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Boaz Yakin (a Sundance winner for Fresh) wrote and directed this drama, set in Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish community, about a young woman who harbors doubts about continuing to follow the path of her religion. Sonia (Renee Zellweger) gives birth to her first child. She wants to name the boy after her dead brother, but after an argument over the name, she resentfully defers to her husband, scholarly zaddik (holy man) Mendel (Glenn Fitzgerald). Both are apprehensive over the child's circumcision. Hasidic traditions dictate their life, including aspects of making love which leave Sonia sexually frustrated. This leads her into an affair with Mendel's older brother, the materialistic Sender (Christopher Eccleston), who offers her an opportunity to manage his neighborhood jewelry store. Against the wishes of Mendel, she accepts, displaying her flair for the jewelry business and establishing herself as a very good businesswoman. However, after she befriends sensitive Hispanic artist Ramon (Allen Payne), a sculptor and jewelry designer, she upsets everyone, especially Sender, who bars her from the store. Forbidden to see her child, Sonia begins a confused, downward spiral. Shown at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
Review
While the initial idea of casting Renee Zellweger as an Orthodox Jewish wife seems fairy ludicrous, her richly drawn, expressive performance is the chief selling point of this often overearnest but sometimes rewarding drama. The central story of the main character's desire to escape her passionless marriage and suffocating existence is older than the Bible, but Zellweger makes the role believable and noteworthy, and sidesteps many of the clichés a lesser performance might employ. Boaz Yakin has assembled a top-drawer cast besides Zellweger, but the film would have benefited from a tighter script and a resistance to creating soap opera (especially in the form of Zellweger's lover, played by Allen Payne). Director Yakin was greeted with jeers from the Brooklyn Hasidic community depicted in the film, presumably for casting Hollywood beauty Zellweger in the title role and bucking more traditional casting; upon release, even lukewarm reviews were quick to praise her solid portrayal. ~ Jason Clark, All Movie Guide
A Price Above Rubies is a 1998 film directed by Boaz Yakin, starring Renée Zellweger as a young woman who finds it hard to adapt to the restrictions imposed on her by the Hasidic community of her husband, played by Glenn Fitzgerald. Reviews of the movie were mixed, though generally positive to Zellweger's performance. The title is a biblical quote. Proverbs 31:10, in the King James translation, says "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies."
The film tells the story of Sonia (Zellweger), a young Brooklyn woman who has just given birth to her first child. She is married, through an arranged marriage, to Mendel (Fitzgerald), a devout Hasidic Jew who is too immersed in his studies to give his wife the attention she craves. As a result, Sonia develops a relationship with Mendel's brother, the jeweller Sender (Eccleston), who brings her into the business. Sender is the only release for Sonia's repressed sexuality, and he takes full advantage of that fact as often as he can, but she is repelled by his utter lack of morals as she finds balance between what she feels and what she has been taught is "sinful". The jewellery business brings her into close contact with the young Puerto Rican artist and jewellry designer Ramon (Payne), but when Sender finds out about their connection he reveals it to the family, and Sonia is divorced and ostracised. The film ends on a more tolerance-friendly note, with Sonia balancing desire and every day life, and Mendel accepting her differences with a blessing and the promise to restore custody of their son.
Reception
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the movie three stars. While impressed by Zellweger's "ferociously strong performance", he found the film did not teach us "much about her society", and that the Hasidic community could have been treated in greater depth.[1] Charles Taylor of Salon likewise appreciated Zellweger's performance, while also finding the cultural aspect treated too superficially. He described Sonia's choices as "clichés left over from the Liberated Woman movies of 20 years ago", and the movie generally as "that old middle-of-the-road groaner about the good and bad in every race".[2] Maria Garcia of Film Journal International was more positively inclined to the movie, and called it a "beautifully wrought, skillfully rendered and brilliantly acted film".[3]
