Among the Amish there is the tradition of rumspinga, a period during which those on the cusp of adulthood may experience a taste of the greater world, able to return afterward to the community by their own choosing. There is no equivalent among Hasidic Jews, but Brooklynite Sam (Jesse Eisenberg) initiates his own ritual in hopes of gaining a financial independence. Given the chance to make easy money by transporting packages overseas, he comes into contact with people of a different sort. He slowly adapts to the ways of the Gentiles and figures out the nature of his illegal cargo, in turn recruiting other credulous folks who resemble his former self. As he alienates his own family and friends, he discovers concepts like partying, and women who put out.
As a fish-out-of-water story, this fact-based drama is just fine, and I had no cause to believe the portrait of the culture was incorrect. But the appeal is more, hey, isn’t it weird that a Hasidic dude became a big drug dealer, rather than any sort of deeper look at the values espoused by a cloistered culture and the ways such traditions are maintained. (For something like that, see Ushpizin, in which two convicts wander into an Orthodox community in Israel.) Eisenberg may look a bit different with his long curls, but his performance is of a piece with the trying-to-fit-in teens he’s played in The Squid and the Whale and Adventureland.
IMDB link
As a fish-out-of-water story, this fact-based drama is just fine, and I had no cause to believe the portrait of the culture was incorrect. But the appeal is more, hey, isn’t it weird that a Hasidic dude became a big drug dealer, rather than any sort of deeper look at the values espoused by a cloistered culture and the ways such traditions are maintained. (For something like that, see Ushpizin, in which two convicts wander into an Orthodox community in Israel.) Eisenberg may look a bit different with his long curls, but his performance is of a piece with the trying-to-fit-in teens he’s played in The Squid and the Whale and Adventureland.
IMDB link
viewed 4/10/2010 (Philadelphia Film Festival Spring Preview) and reviewed 7/6/2010
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