In A Stranger Among Us, director Sidney Lumet takes one of his recurrent topics, the urban police thriller, and situates it in the context of Hasidic culture in New York’s Williamsburg.
Grade: C: *1/2*(0ut of *****)
| Stranger Among Us | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
|
|
Unfortunately, the end result is a dramatically unsatisfying, psychologically shallow film–one of Lumet’s weakest–about the contrast between two totally different worlds.
Melanie Griffith is (mis)cast as police detective Emily Eden, a modern career woman in every sense of the term. The ultimate professional, life has hardened Emily, making her tough and emotionally detached. She is a single woman who is engaged in a sexual, but loveless, affair. We later learn that Emily is the daughter of an abusive alcoholic father who was also a cop. The narrative sets her up as a woman ready for some personal softening and a more meaningful consciousness.
In the first scene, the independent and proud Emily refuses to call for backup, which nearly causes the death of her partner who is also her lover. While he is recovering in the hospital, her supervisor assigns her to a routine case–a missing person–except that the missing person is a Hasidic Jew. To resolve what turns out to be a murder mystery, Emily goes undercover among the Hasidim.
Once this frame is established, the film’s heart–and focus–becomes the attraction and platonic romance between two extreme personalities: Emily and Ariel (Eric Thal), a bright Talmudic student, who is destined to replace his adoptive father as the community’s Rebbe.
The plot of the movie bears strong resemblance to Peter Weir’s Witness, in which Harrison Ford went undercover among the Amish in Pennsylvania and fell in love with one of their members. And interestingly, the Lumet movie has similar problems to the 1985 film: Highly contrived, the thriller’s elements don’t jell with the central melodrama.
The thriller imposed on the story doesn’t make much sense. Because the outsider Emily first arrives in the community as a detective, most of the members know her identity by the time she goes undercover. The prime suspects–the Baldessari brothers–make for such obvious villains that one immediately knows the murderer must be somebody else. You may also find it hard to believe that as a N.Y. policewoman, Emily is completely ignorant of the Hasidic community; she has never heard about kosher food or the required separation of meat from dairy products!
Lumet and scenarist Robert J. Avrech are clearly not interested in constructing a logical or engaging mystery. Instead, they use the thriller format superficially–as an excuse to show the transformation of a contemporary woman after encountering a highly moral universe.
Lumet emphasizes the ideological contrast of a moralistic traditionalist life, centering on strong family and community values, and one dominated by careerism and work. The first sequence of the movie crosscuts between the devout Hasidic Jews, spending their time studying, and scenes establishing Emily’s hollow existence. Emily’s world is shot in a realistic, matter of fact, manner, whereas the Hasidic community is photographed in golden, soft-focused light. This device represents much more than a stylistic choice. Lumet, assisted by cinematographer Andrzej Bartkowiak, idealize the Hasidic world by depicting it as permanently washed in a glowing light.
Lumet’s reverential treatment of the Hasidic subculture may derive from his guilt as an assimilated Jew. Midway through the film, he forgets the thriller–and the story–and chronicles the preparations for a Sabbath celebration, recording in great detail the communal spirit of praying, eating, dancing.
But Lumet’s all-embracing veneration of the Hasidic lifestyle lacks any criticism. “They are a fundamentalist group,” Lumet said in an interview, “they don’t question what their discipline is, they don’t question their lives.” But fundamentalism, in any religion, and lack of questioning, might be dubious values to cherish under certain circumstances. Lumet never questions the blind adherence to most restrictive rituals–he appears to suggest that the Hasidic lifestyle is preferable, because it’s old-fashioned.
Moreover, female viewers might raise a question or two about the movie’s unambiguous portrayal of the subservient position of Hasidic women–every woman in the film is willingly accepting her lot as housewife and mother.
Melanie Griffith is an actress who likes to stretch, here playing the reversal of her previous outing, Shining Through. Physically, Griffith’s Gentile looks are most appropriate, and her charm as a performer helps overcome the film’s more naive aspects. Griffith has some moving encounters with Thal, an inexperienced actor whose natural shyness suits the character of Ariel.
But try as they may, the two actors can’t overcome the film’s flaws. “We are not quaint or exotic,” Ariel says in anger in an earlier scene. Unfortunately, A Stranger Among Us commits the error of depicting the Hasidim as quaint, exotic–and cute.
Critical Status:
The film was inexplicably chosen for the 1992 Cannes Film Fest.
It is one of Lumet’s two failures of the 1990s, the other being Guilty as Sin (1993).
Despite the poor reviews for both films, Lumet received the 1993 D. W. Griffith Award of the Directors Guild of America.
Curio Item:
The film was also the first credited role for actor James Gandolfini, wo would go on to star in the acclaimed TV series, The Sopranos.
Cast
Melanie Griffith — Emily Eden, a hardened New York detective
Eric Thal — Ariel, Leah’s brother and the rebbe’s adopted son.
Mia Sara — Leah, Ariel’s sister and rebbe’s adopted daughter.
Tracy Pollan — Mara, the fiancée of Yaakov
Lee Richardson Rebbe, Ariel, Leah, and Mara’s adopted father.
John Pankow — Levine, Emily’s second partner.
Jamey Sheridan — Nick, Emily’s first partner.
James Gandolfini — Anthony Baldessari, Christopher’s younger brother.
Chris Latta — Christopher Baldessari, Anthony’s older brother.
Jake Weber– Yaakov Klausman, Mara’s fiancé and Ariel’s friend.
David Margulies — Lt. Oliver, superior of Emily, Nick and Levine.
Rena Sofer — Shayna Singer, Ariel’s basherte.
Credits:
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Written by Robert J. Avrech
Produced by Steve Golin, Howard Rosenman, Sigurjón Sighvatsson
Cinematography Andrzej Bartkowiak
Edited by Andrew Mondshein
Music by Jerry Bock
Production company: Hollywood Pictures
Distributed by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
Release date: July 17, 1992
Running time: 109 minutes
Budget $18 million
Box office $12 million
About Sidney Lumet
Influential Directors: Sidney Lumet
Sidney Lumet’s career had lasted for over 50 years and yielded countless classics, most set in his hometown, New York City, and two of his very best starring Al Pacino.
His first feature was 12 Angry Men, one of the most confident and powerful debuts ever, a powerful courtroom drama starring and produced by Henry Fonda.
He hit his stride in the 1970s with several consecutive masterpieces, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, and Network to name a few.
Lumet is a director’s director. He cares about the craft, which is obvious if you’ve read his seminal book “Making Movies.”
He’s also an actor’s director: just check out the large number of performers who have been nominated for or have won the Oscar Awards.
Few directors have shown as much range or as much love for the medium as Lumet did.
He is a quintessentially New York director, sand a Jewish one at that, albeit in a different manner than this younger colleagues–most notably Woody Allen and Paul Mazurski–have been.
