Menashe

Funny, heartbreaking, impeccably observed, and nearly flawless drama.

The result is an act of partial, tenderly observed guerrilla filmmaking. It works; it takes you somewhere, quietly but evocatively, and it’s affecting without pulling at your heartstrings with both hands.

The result is a sharp, moving dissection of personal identity and self-agency.

As a slice of ultra-orthodox life, Menashe offers an unusual — and unusually sympathetic — look inside a world that is often hidden from view.

The news behind the understated drama Menashe is that it’s a rare thing, a film performed in Yiddish, covertly shot in Brooklyn’s guarded Hasidic community.

Weinstein normally directs documentaries, and Menashe has a fly-on-the-wall feel at times, particularly in the warmly believable interplay between father and son.

The film ends up getting stuck in a no man’s land between fiction and documentary, never quite coming together as a complete narrative.

A simple and strong story that you care about. Not only does the movie make you care about the main character, who is (understandably or not) a mess, but it makes you care about the religion and culture that Menashe and his son is a part of. The movie humanizes everyone. Good acting, direction, writing, stakes and subtle message that executes its landing.

An interesting little film with a thoughtful story to tell, but that doesn't really change the fact that it felt a bit cliche, almost like a story we've seen time and again with a parent fighting to maintain custody of his or her child. Still however, it does give an insightful look at a culture rarely seen or explored in detail in other films. Overall, it's slow-moving and cliche, but may prove more thoughtful and interesting to some more than others. For me, it was more or less.

This film is unique because it was shot entirely in a Hasidic Jewish community in New York (often in secret) and is one of few films spoken in Yiddish. It revolves around the title character, a widower who's struggling to keep custody of his son despite the rule that a child must be raised by 2 parents. He's also essentially a loser: not great at his job, often late, sometimes inept and with wrong attitude about turning his life around. The film is rich in observations of the rituals, customs and interactions of this often insular community. However, it's light on narrative and more about incidents that seek to illuminate his situation. As an emotional story, there's not much here, but as a glimpse into a little-seen world, it's an interesting documentary.