The touching coming-of-age story of Anna Winger and Alexa Karolinski, loosely based on Deborah Feldman’s memoir Unorthodox: My Hasidgan’s Shameful Rejection , follows the extraordinary Shira Haas as Esty, a 19 year old Jewish woman fleeing her ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn Community. her destination? Berlin, the home of her estranged mother, where she is able to accept her past and ultimately decide her own future. The constraints Esty has to deal with are clear, but not demeaning to her steadfast heritage, tight circle, or her husband (Amit Rahav), who is determined to bring her home.
When they see us
Photo: Atsushi Nishijima/Netflix
Ava DuVernay’s superb four-episode miniseries is undeniably harrowing — but it’s also a must-watch. It featured the talented Asante Blackk, Caleel Harris, Ethan Herisse, Jharrel Jerome, and Marquis Rodriguez as the Central Park Five, falsely accused of 1989. Despite conflicting accounts and a lack of evidence, it is with steadfastness and compassion that we travel from that fateful day to the boys’ arrest, harrowing interrogation, trial and eventual conviction. Then, we watched each of them finish their tenure in a teenage facility — except Korey Wise, the eldest in an adult prison — and struggle to readjust to the outside world. More than a decade later, the real perpetrators admitted that the five were acquitted and later reconciled, but of course their lives would never be the same again.
