The Nutty Professor sent in this review of A PRICE ABOVE RUBIES. and trust me, I know this Nutty fellow. He likes Mounds, Baby Ruths and 13th Avenues... He knows he's nuts.
"A Price Above Rubies".
Well let's start by saying that this film falls into the category of films that seem suited for the small screen better than they are for the big. For example, "The Fabulous Baker Boys" is a wonderful film to watch on tv, that doesn't make it a bad film, it just means that watching it on tv makes the experience of the film all the more intimate and personal and I feel "A Price Above Rubies" happens to be one of these films. It loses something in the theater. It's a sweat pants and sweatshirt movie on a sunday afternoon on cable that you just sit through all the way and doze off a couple of times throughout but never really miss anything. Sometimes that's good and sometimes that's bad. In this case--the film just doesn't hit the mark cleanly.
Basically, this is a story of Sophia (bad sign, I didn't realize what her name was until about an hour into the film) a Hassidic jewish woman in NY. She's married to a teacher of the Torah in the community and she has a baby boy. She's also a jewelry expert. But the story is about this characters realization that the repressed life she lives as a Hassidic wife is not what she was destined for. She wants more.
Now the acting is okay, headed by a miscast Renee Zellwegger and Juliana Marguilles who in retrospect should have probably should have been cast in Renee's role. The major problem I have with Renee in this film is she pretty much relies on one facial expression for the whole film. That pouty "who me" expression remains constant during her performance of a character who is quite complex and is undergoing tremendous emotional shifts throughout the story. Basically, her character starts to want to be more sexual and to feel more passion in her repressed life, so she chooses to have an affair with her brother-in-law and a Hispanic artist. Yeah, I know this sounds crazy and I think that's the problem. It could be hot--but it's not. The lovemaking scenes are so cold and boring that they almost seem unnecessary. I think they wew supposed to reflect the people and the characters but they really sucked the life out the film. They probably could have visually suggested the sex scenes and not shown them and saved about fifteen minutes. Leave it to our imagination, guys. Even though her character is supposed to be diving into her lustful urges, Renee never quite gets you hot. There's no passion and no nudity, not that nudity is a requirement for a hot sex scene, but she just seems to be making the same damn face the whole movie.
The script is probably accurate to the Hassidic lifestyle, but it is extremely trite (boring dialogue). I don't feel like I have really been let into the world of the Hassidic culture like I think this movie should have. Go rent "The Chosen" with Robbie Benson to get a better idea of what these folks are about. The direction is okay. The movie's about thirty minutes too long. The cinematography is boring. I don't think there was a landmark shot in the whole film that seemed to visually suggest something more than the film was telling us. Cut and dry cinematography.
But there is something compelling going on in the movie. I don't know, I think the basic message of Sophia coming out of her repressed shell and changing is always a story that anyone can relate to. God knows we all want to be something more exciting than we are. But there were too many inconsistencies in this film. There's a hint of a lesbian urge in Sophia early on in the movie that is never addressed again in the film. There are imaginary characters such as her little brother and this beggar woman who keep popping up and sometimes other people see them and sometimes they don't. Major continuity flaw in my mind.
The ending of the film is very incongruous to the plot. It was not set up properly and things just seem to happen for odd reasons. They never even deal with the fact that she was sleeping with husbands brother. It just occurs but is never brought out again. Yet during the film they suggest that the people in the community know what is going on between her and her brother in law. Another loose end.
Perhaps the test marketing encouraged some re-shoots that just didn't fit the whole film. I also got the strange feeling that this was Miramax's female "Good Will Hunting". The formula of Good Will seemed to creep up on you. We even got a scene where a mentor type character who helps Sophia get out of her shell makes her come to terms with herself by looking at herself in the mirror. This epiphany instantly reminded me to the "It's Not You Fault" scene in Good Will.
Renee has very little presence as a Hassidic jeweler but she is still appealing in that Jerry Maguire sweet girlfriend sort of way, although I think more and more that she and Joey Lauren Adams from Chasing Amy are the same actress.
But overall this film needs to cut about twenty to thirty minutes and lose some of the inconsistencies in order to flow properly. The audience I saw it with were not too happy with it. Many were getting up and leaving and coming back in fifteen minutes later asking, "did I miss anything" The general reply was "No". Hence I do not think any of us would miss anything if we didn't see "A Price Above Rubies" until it hits cable. Save the 8 bucks or spend it on some bowling with The Dude.
