Unorthodox (2020) — Movie Recs

The story of Etsy’s thrilling escape from her life as an Orthodox Jewish woman

This Limited series I watched recently on Netflix is actually based and adapted from one of Deborah Feldman’s masterpieces: “Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots”

The series is about Etsy, a young Orthodox Jewish woman who spends almost all her life living together with the extra-structured Jewish Orthodox community in Williamsburg even though she never felt like she fit in, booked a sudden flight to Berlin, Germany, and traveled there without anything but her purse and body! She then met a group of young musicians in Berlin and decided to join them by applying to the same university.

My, Oh my. I am practically a crying mess. I can feel Etsy’s struggle and uneasiness by only watching the movie. Etsy’s struggle is not stopping there. After her escape to Berlin, The community sent her husband along with his cousins to take her back to New York.

There goes the search for Etsy. There are several subplots such as Etsy’s application to a music major in a University to pursue her dreams: singing & performing music in front of people. Also, there’s her secret rendezvous with one of the young musicians and her reunion with her mother, who left the community ages ago who now lives happily in Berlin.

What will happen when her abandoned husband and the angry extended family find out? Will they accept Esty’s “unorthodox” life choices?

Even though the subject may not attract everybody, the story is actually universal. The journey in the search of independence, Self-efficacy, finding out our true heart and dreams. It’ll also open a new perspective that we don’t know that it’s even existed before.

You can watch this show in your free time. It is a Limited, four parts Tv Shows. If you seek for a meaningful series that at least, while you watch it, teaches you something in the process, but are simply packed so that we are able to understand it easily, this show is perfect for you!