'Unorthodox' review: the way from social domination to autonomy

‘Unorthodox’ is a German-American drama miniseries based on Deborah Feldman's autobiography ‘Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots’. It appeared on Netflix in 2020.

The 4-episode series presents the complex situation of a woman and her low position in a society dominated by men. 19-year-old Esthy, raised in the Ultra-Orthodox community, is looking for her own independence against Jewish law. Her character is a mixture of innocence, awkwardness, fear, but also rebellion and bravery. The girl realizes that she’s unhappy with people who tell her how to live and don’t allow her to make decisions on her own. Her environment is a world of dominant rules and personalities, gossip and harmful opinions, devoid of privacy and chance for development. She runs away from her arranged marriage in New York and moves to Berlin to start a new life there. In Europe, she learns self-acceptance as well as a liberal, secular, conscious life. Although her clumsy husband and his unpredictable cousin fly to Berlin when they learn that the young woman is pregnant, she doesn’t return to Williamsburg with them.

I think that the series, although being modest in form and having no thrilling plot, presents an important reflection on self-formation of one's own identity.

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