Unorthodox Review

Made in Germany for Netflix, inspired by Deborah Feldman's memoir, written by Anna Winger and Alexa Karolinski and directed by Maria Schrader, Unorthodox was the first Netflix series made mostly in Yiddish. Shira Haas plays Esty, who leaves her husband Yanky (Amit Rahav) and the Satmar community of Williamsburg, and the series cuts between Berlin and flashbacks to the marriage that drove her out.

The flashbacks, drawn from Feldman's book, are the finest thing in it: the wedding, the shaving of Esty's head, the pressure to consummate the marriage. Care over language and ritual (Eli Rosen, a Yiddish specialist, coached the cast and plays the rabbi) gives the community weight rather than villainy. Haas, small and watchful, makes every choice legible without speeches, and Jeff Wilbusch, a native Yiddish speaker from the Satmar world, is frightening as Moishe, Yanky's cousin, sent to bring her home.

Berlin is less persuasive: the music students who adopt Esty are generous to the point of fairy tale, and the closing audition tidies up a story about how hard leaving is. Schrader directs with restraint, as when Esty wades into the Wannsee, near the villa where the Final Solution was planned, and takes off her wig, and she won the Emmy for directing, the first Primetime Emmy for a German production.