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A Price Above Rubies

A Price Above Rubies

List Price: $14.99
Your Price: $13.49
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: fascinating film, yet not a nice portrayal of the hassidim
Review: i must admit i enjoyed this film, i found it entertaining, however, i would hate to think that this is how the hassidim treat one another. nobody was nice or showed any kind of sensitivity, there wasn't much love or affection and i can't believe this to be an accurate portrayal of an entire community. way too hollywood to be true.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: The Actors
Review: I think ALLEN PAYNE did a good job, i was so glad to see him after such a long time. I also think RENEE ZELLWEGGER was perfect in this movie also.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Enjoyable, but nothing moved my emotions.
Review: I think the acting for what it is worth did an acceptable job. If Im somewhat accurate on that, then it must of been the story-line.
I found it slow, boring, but in some places interesting. I purchased this movie based on other's opinon read here. However if your not a huge fan of Renee' Zellweger, then I think you may be dissapoined in this film. Rent before purchasing. ;)

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: What a bigoted piece of bovine by-product
Review: I used to say that "Yentl" was the worst movie on the market when it came to ugly stereotypes about how Hasidim supposedy mistreat women. Guess I'll have to update my yuck-list and put this one at the top. Sure, it's ostensibly about "one woman's" story, but the problem is, there are so few movies about Hasidim at all (I can count them on one hand), that non-Hasidic people are bound to think this is "typical" of the whole culture. It's not. It's a Hollywood version of what a bunch of anti-Hasidic secular script writers THINK Hasidism is about, based on their own ignorance and -- dare I say it? -- sexual fantasies. Anybody who has spent any time in a real Hasidic community will see the glaring errors in this film. If a movie this nasty had been produced about American Indians or blacks or any other minority culture besides Orthodox Jews, the PC crowd would be up in arms screaming "bigotry."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An excellent movie
Review: If you like the book, The Catcher in the Rye, you'll like this film. The heroine is a young wife, new mother and Hasidic Jew living in present-day New York. While many reviewers felt that this film took a huge swipe at Judaism, the woman's religion is merely a very rich, complex context in which to explore one woman's sense of isolation and oppression. The movie also alludes to the inescapable nature of cultural rules for other groups through her friendship with a black/hispanic, Catholic man. As a young, female Christian from the Midwest, I did not see this woman's plight as that of a Jewish woman, but as that of any woman who must accept a life that ignores her need for sexual fullfillment, meaningful work and the ability to express herself openly and without male censure. This movie did nothing to undermine my respect for Judaism. The movie's main theme is about one woman's feelings of oppression. Oppression she likely never would have experienced had she the same opportunities and creative outlets as the men in her culture. Renee Zellweger was amazing in the lead role, and the supporting cast was excellent. This movie stayed with me for days after I saw it.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: totally falsly portrayed
Review: Im a hassid and I have love. Lots of love. From one loving husband. I love my life.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: "ONE OF THE MOST DISGRACEFUL MOVIES EVER FILMED"
Review: IT'S A DISGRACE. I THINK ANY THAT EVERY ORTHODOX JEW WOULD HOLD THE SAME OPINION.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Actually, this gets no stars!
Review: Just read what "A viewer from USA" wrote (aug 2). To the point.

This movie is offensive.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Ambitious Movie About Finding One's Self
Review: Let's get the basics out of the way first: Great film. Great story, great title, and that vanishingly rare thing, a satisfying ending. But it doesn't all quite hold together as well as it might, and it isn't quite as riveting as it might be, either. So, a great film, but a few minor problems keep it a hair short of five stars. Why?

Because of the nature of the personal ground the movie covers, its action comes largely through dialogue. Although it is a great drama, and very well worth seeing, it cannot quite reach the compelling heights of Boaz Yakin's earlier movie Fresh -- which covered more well-defined ground and invited the audience to try to understand the action, not the words. It isn't as unflinching as Tokyo Decadence, either, but then, most people have difficulty making it all the way through Tokyo Decadence, and even then the hard images they have witnessed leave them with little ability to even wonder what it was they just saw. Although Fresh too alienated a larger audience with imagery and language too bold for the more dainty folks, A Price Above Rubies is probably the most approachable of the three films, despite an undeniable sexual energy that comes through in intermittent bursts. What matters, though, is that A Price Above Rubies manages to pull off a great deal of difficult narrative work quite gracefully, and will leave most anyone watching wondering what it really means, and how it applies to them. To this extent, it succeeds, and the film is an admirable and thoroughly enjoyable achievement that surprises and delights. But the film tries to cover so much ground so quickly, particularly in the last half hour, that the audience has to work fairly hard not only at following the rather impressive territory our heroine moves through in her personal growth, but also at believing that all this maturing and realization and epiphany by her as well as everyone else is really possible. These are problems that Fresh, and for that matter Tokyo Decadence, didn't have, and as much as I enjoyed A Price Above Rubies, I'd recommend either of the other two films above it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great movie, says this observant Jew
Review: Many reviewers here who describe themselves as Orthodox or Hassidic did not like the movie. I guess they worried that viewers would think the nasty characters were typical of Hassidic Jews.

That's hard for me to see. The movie does not show Hassidic Jews as nasty; rather it shows that one fictional Hassidic community contains all kinds of people: both the innocent and the conniving; both the spiritually wise and the spiritually confused; both those comfortable with structure and those in constant rebellion against it. When these kinds of people try to live together, the result is tragi-comic.

This tragi-comedy is played out in the inner life of the main character Sonya, a young wife, mother, and jeweler with the soul of an artist and the maturity of a teenager. Her strongly felt but poorly understood desire to get more out of life makes her an easy target for her brother-in-law, the movie's villain. Though many hearts are broken along the way, the movie has a hopeful ending.

Viewers unfamiliar with Orthodox Jewish culture will miss some of the references in this movie, but the psychological dynamics are universal.


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