{"id":1943,"date":"2017-05-28T07:22:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-27T21:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/?p=1943"},"modified":"2017-05-27T16:20:35","modified_gmt":"2017-05-27T06:20:35","slug":"norman-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theblurb.com.au\/wp\/norman-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Norman – movie review"},"content":{"rendered":"

A penniless wheeler and dealer gets in with the big boys and finds himself caught up way over his head.\u00a0<\/span>That, in a nutshell, is what the cleverly conceived and executed mind-bender Norman<\/em>\u00a0is all about.<\/span><\/p>\n

Norman Oppenheimer (Richard Gere) lives a lonely life in the margins of New York City power and money.\u00a0<\/span>He is a would-be operator dreaming up financial schemes that never come to fruition.\u00a0<\/span>As he has nothing real to offer, Norman strives to be everyone\u2019s friend, but his incessant networking leads him nowhere. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Always on the lookout for someone willing to pay attention to him, Norman sets his sights on Micha Eshel (Lior Ashkenazi), a charismatic Israeli politician alone in New York at a low point in his career.\u00a0<\/span>Sensing Eshel\u2019s vulnerability, Norman reaches out with a very expensive gift, a gesture that deeply touches Eshel.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When Eshel becomes Prime Minister three years later, he remembers.\u00a0<\/span>With his very real connection to the leader of a major nation, Norman is awash in the respect he has always craved.\u00a0<\/span>Flush with his newfound feeling of success, Norman attempts to use Eshel\u2019s name to leverage his biggest deal ever.\u00a0<\/span>That involves a series of quid pro quo transactions linking the Prime Minister to Norman\u2019s nephew (Michael Sheen), a rabbi (Steve Buscemi), a mogul (Harris Yulin), his assistant (Dan Stevens) and a treasury official from the Ivory Coast.\u00a0<\/span>Norman\u2019s kaleidoscopic plans soon go awry, creating the potential for an international catastrophe he must struggle to prevent. <\/span><\/p>\n

The new film by Academy Award<\/span> nominated director Joseph Cedar (<\/span>Footnote<\/span><\/i>) is a comic and compassionate drama about a little man whose downfall is rooted in a human frailty all too easy to forgive \u2013 a need to <\/span>matter<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span>Writer\/Director Cedar\u2019s story of Norman Oppenheimer, humble New York fixer, is a re-imagining of an archetypal tale that has played out in history and literature for thousands of years, namely the Court Jew<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cThe narrative of a Court Jew follows a classic structure,\u201d says Cedar.\u00a0<\/span>\u201cA Jew meets a man who eventually becomes a man with power, but he meets him at a point where his resistance is very low.\u00a0<\/span>He offers the man a gift or a favor and when the man ends up being in power, he brings the Jew into his court.\u201d But it is hardly smooth sailing from there.\u00a0<\/span>Looking for a modern counterpart to the Court Jew, Cedar set on the idea of a \u201cfixer,\u201d someone who helps powerful people get things they want, by taking actions they are unwilling to openly do themselves. <\/span><\/p>\n