| Unorthodox | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Drama |
| Created by | |
| Inspired by | Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots byDeborah Feldman |
| Written by |
|
| Directed by | Maria Schrader |
| Starring | |
| Country of origin |
|
| Original languages |
|
| No. of episodes | 4 |
| Production | |
| Executive producers |
|
| Producer | Alexa Karolinski |
| Running time | 52–54 minutes |
| Production companies |
|
| Original release | |
| Network | Netflix |
| Release | March 26, 2020 (2020-03-26) |
Unorthodox is a Germandrama television miniseries that debuted onNetflix on March 26, 2020. Inspired byDeborah Feldman's 2012 autobiography,Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots, it is the first Netflix series to be primarily inYiddish. The four-part miniseries was created and written byAnna Winger andAlexa Karolinski, and directed byMaria Schrader.
The series received eightPrimetime Emmy Award nominations, includingOutstanding Limited Series,Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series (Shira Haas), andOutstanding Writing for a Limited Series (Anna Winger), winning forOutstanding Directing for a Limited Series (Maria Schrader) - the first ever Primetime Emmy for a German production.
Esty Shapiro, a 19-year-oldJewish woman, is living unhappily in an arranged marriage among theSatmar sect of theultra-Orthodox community inWilliamsburg, Brooklyn,New York City.[1] She runs away toBerlin, where her estranged mother lives, and tries to navigate asecular life, discovering life outside her community andrejecting all of the beliefs she grew up with.[2] Her husband, who learns that she is pregnant, travels to Berlin with his cousin, by order of theirrabbi, to try to find her.[3]
| No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Part 1" | Maria Schrader | Anna Winger | March 26, 2020 (2020-03-26) | |
On a Sabbath day, 19-year-old Esty Shapiro, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish married woman, flees her home in theWilliamsburg,Brooklyn, section ofNew York City with only a handful of possessions. She takes a plane toBerlin, where her estranged mother lives, but runs away before they can meet after seeing her mother kiss her female partner. At a coffee shop, Esty meets Robert, a young man ordering many coffees. She helps him take coffee to his friends who are waiting at a nearby music conservatory where they all study. Esty sneaks into their rehearsal, and is deeply moved by their music. After the rehearsal, she hears the group announce they are going to the beach, and asks to come along. At the beach, Esty removes hersheitel as she bathes in the water, revealing her real hair. Back in Williamsburg, Esty's husband, Yanky Shapiro, discovers that she is missing, and runs to his family for help. In aflashback, Esty prepares to marry Yanky, and is visited by her mother who gives her German citizenship papers, should she ever need them. Esty goes forward with her wedding. | |||||
| 2 | "Part 2" | Maria Schrader | Alexa Karolinski Anna Winger | March 26, 2020 (2020-03-26) | |
Esty is discovered sleeping overnight in the conservatory. She is encouraged to apply for a hardship scholarship given to talented refugees and musicians in other difficult circumstances. Esty decides to go ahead as she plays the piano. When her conservatory friends invite her to dinner, they ask her to perform a piece. Esty is heartbroken when one of them, Yael, tells her that, while she is musical, her playing is merely adequate, and nowhere near good enough for the conservatory. She calls home for the first time, but is further distressed when her grandmother hangs up on her without speaking. Yanky and his cousin Moishe fly toBerlin to try to retrieve Esty, and Yanky is stunned by Moishe's worldly ways. | |||||
| 3 | "Part 3" | Maria Schrader | Anna Winger Alexa Karolinski | March 26, 2020 (2020-03-26) | |
Esty decides to withdraw her application for the conservatory, but the woman processing her application convinces her to continue with it. She goes to a club to see Yael performing, and is spotted by Moishe, who has succeeded in tracking her down. Esty leaves with Robert before Moishe can confront her. When they return to Robert's apartment, Robert and Esty share an intimate encounter. In a flashback, Esty's marriage begins to crumble almost as soon as it starts, as she cannot have sex with Yanky because she finds it painful. She is eventually told that she is suffering fromvaginismus. After a particularly angry fight with Yanky, Esty urges him to complete sex with her, despite her horrific pain. | |||||
| 4 | "Part 4" | Maria Schrader | Alexa Karolinski Anna Winger | March 26, 2020 (2020-03-26) | |
Moishe finally tracks down Esty, and threatens her, telling her she will have nothing if she doesn't return to her husband. In distress, Esty finally contacts her mother, who promises to support her and her child. Esty decides to go through with her audition, switching her discipline from the piano to voice. After her audition, she is approached by Yanky, who begs her to come home with him. Promising to change, Yanky cuts off hispayot, but Esty tells him it is too late for them and leaves to start her new life. | |||||
The series was inspired by, and is loosely based on, the memoirUnorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots byDeborah Feldman, who left theSatmar movement, aHasidic community in New York City.[4] Because Feldman is a public figure, the writers veered from her life in the fictional Berlin sequences, but based the flashbacks on the book.[5] The show has language switching fromEnglish toYiddish toGerman.[2]Unorthodox is the first Netflix series to be primarily in Yiddish.[6][7]
The show was written byAnna Winger andAlexa Karolinski, directed byMaria Schrader, and produced by Karolinski.[8] Feldman approached writers Winger and Karolinski to turn her autobiography into a television series. They took on the project in part because the story meshed with several topics of mutual interest, especially the challenges of beingJewish in Germany. Winger said that the story "has a kind of doubling back on history", portraying a Jewish character who escapes the "confines of her own life" by returning "to the source of her community's trauma".
Filming began in New York, then relocated to Berlin, where the production designer built interior sets at CCC Filmstudios[9] that synced with the Brooklyn exteriors. Berlin locations includePotsdamer Platz, which served as the set for the music academy and surroundings, and the Wannsee lake (Großer Wannsee), where, as referenced in the story, the "Final Solution" was planned at a shoreline villa.[10][5] The music academy inUnorthodox is based on theBarenboim-Said Akademie.[11][12]Anna Winger toldThe Guardian: "There's a real music academy called the Barenboim-Said Akademie where Jews and Muslims play classical music together, like a whole utopia. We were inspired by this idea, as the sort of institution that could only begin in Berlin."[13]
For the production and costume designers, the project presented the challenge of creating a period film set in the present day, with the main character gradually transitioning between them. The two-day filming of the wedding was a complex undertaking, involving about a hundred extras that had to accurately depict a nuanced cultural celebration. "The joke on the show was that the men required way more hair and make-up than the women", Winger said. Costume designer Justine Seymour obtained some of the clothes in Williamsburg, but not the costly fur hats,shtreimels, which were made by a Hamburg-based theater company, usingfake fur, instead of minks.[5]
An early hire was actor and Yiddish specialist Eli Rosen, who translated the scripts, coached the actors, helped with cultural details, and played the rabbi. The production team took two research trips to theBrooklyn neighborhood ofWilliamsburg, touring buildings and meeting with the community ofSatmar Jews, where part of the story is set. Cast in Germany, Jeff Wilbusch was unique among the four lead actors in being a native Yiddish speaker from the Satmar community (via theMea Shearim neighborhood ofJerusalem).[5]
Unorthodox received widespread critical acclaim. The review aggregation websiteRotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 96%, based on 52 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Unorthodox adapts its source material with extreme care, crafting a series that is at once intimate and urgent, all centered around Shira Haas' captivating performance."[14] OnMetacritic, it has a weighted average score of 85 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[15]
Netflix released a 20-minute documentary,Making Unorthodox, that chronicles the creative process and filming of the miniseries, and discussed the differences between thebook and the TV show.[4]
| General | |
|---|---|
| Television series |
|
| Films |
|
| Documentaries |
|
