Menashe

Woody Allen meets A Serious Man in acclaimed documentarian Joshua Z Weinstein's wonderfully droll Yiddish-language feature debut, set in the strict orthodox-Jewish community of Borough Park, Brooklyn. Newcomer Menashe Lustig makes for a capitivating, unusual protagonist as the eponymous widower, a well-meaning schlub who struggles to care for his 10-year-old boy in the wake of his beloved spouse's recent demise.

Under pressure from his family and community to marry again, the perennially cash-strapped Menashe finds himself enmeshed in an interlocking series of financial, existential and spiritual crises, in a world where religion and tradition dictate and inform every aspect of a man's life. "What makes the film so engaging," wrote David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter, "is the thoroughness with which it humanizes and renders accessible the hermetic Hasidic community."
Various trials push the Job-like, long-suffering Menashe towards the boundaries of socially-acceptable behaviour--at which point his worldly-wise uncle steps in to intervene. Complications quickly ensue. A poignant parable executed in brisk, visually crisp, neo-realist style by a skilled director making an auspicious and confident sideways move into fiction, Menashe features terrific performances from a non-pro cast headed by popular web-comedian Lustig and the precocious Ruben Niborski as his adorable, adoring son. NY

Joshua Z Weinstein (b. 1983) studied film at Boston University, Massachusetts. In addition to directing his own films (including 2008's mid-length Flying On One Engine and the widely-screened 2012 short I Beat Mike Tyson) he also works as a cinematographer, with a particular emphasis on documentary.