Hester Street (2021)
A Russian emigre prides himself on the way he's molded himself into a real Yankee in the USA, though the world he lives in, New York's Lower East Side in the late 19th century, is almost exclusively populated by other Jewish immigrants. When his wife finally arrives in the New World, however, she has a lot of assimilating to do.
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Overrated and overhyped
Excellent but underrated film
If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.
Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
I think the best adjective for Hester Street is beautiful. The way immigrant life, with all of its complexities and nuances, is depicted is very poignant. It is not so long ago that many of our ancestors displayed bravery by leaving for a faraway land that they knew little of. Their struggle to escape persecution or poverty and to assimilate into a foreign culture is part of the American experience. I love the way this film captures the duality of life in the Jewish section of New York. Despite the fact that only Jews live in this area, we see both the Americanized lifestyle and the orthodox lifestyle, existing side by side and evolving daily.Carol Kane is wonderful in the part of Gitl, the wife who must adapt to a new world and put up with a husband who has abandoned all principles in his adoption of American ways.Hester Street feels like a "small" film. Much of the action takes place in the cramped apartment of Gitl and her family (and the boarder). This is Gitl's new world, a reality that she might be content with, if her husband were loving. The street scenes remind us that Gitl's apartment is just a small part of a bustling neighborhood situated in a huge city in a corner of the new world.
Well, in 1972 "The Godfather" was a sensation, so why not other stories about immigrants adapting to life in the New World? This one is about Jews on Hester Street which was, at the turn of the century, the heart of the community on the Lower East Side. The adaptation of immigrants is never smooth, and it's a bit bumpy in this story.Steven Keats is Jake, who shares quarters with Bernstein. It's 1898 and Jake is a rake, going to dancing classes, flirting with the looser local girls, wearing a fashionable mustache, speaking English quickly and cockily. He's not making much money -- twelve dollars a week behind a sewing machine -- but he's happy.But then his comfortable routine is busted up by the arrival from Russia of his wife, Carol Kane, and their young son. Kane speaks no English, wears traditional clothes, and an outlandish wig considered suitable for observant women in the old country.I mentioned speaking English and I must admit I love the locutions that immigrants bring to American English. They can be utterly charming, whether or not they're amusing.Scene: Keats has met his wife and child and is trying to maneuver them through the immigration obstacle at the station. The uniformed official behind the desk is skeptical when Keats claims they are his family. "For what purpose are you bringing this woman into the country?", asks the bureaucrat with a squint. (Dumb stare from Keats.) "For what purpose are you bringing this woman into the country?" Keats, angrily: "For the poipous dat she is my WIFE!" The marriage doesn't work out in the new environment. Keats loves the gay life and Kane is quiet and seems antiquated. So Keats sends a lawyer to her to discuss divorce. How much does she want to grant him a divorce? "Fifty dollars," says the lawyer in a theatrical manner. "You'll be a rich woman. You can get another husband just like that." No? The lawyer shakes his head sadly. Okay. "You got a little one you need to take care of. I can go seventy-five dollars. No? What kind of business are we doing here, Lady? What do you want, a HUNDRED DOLLARS? Oy -- what am I saying! Okay, it's out. I said it. A hundred dollars." I'm still laughing as I write this, but the whole movie isn't made up of such comic gems. I've seen it twice, the first time on its release, and was completely involved. The second time there were fewer surprises, although some scenes -- the ritual of the divorce, for instance -- were just as touching as the first time around. I believe, too, that the low budget may have drained the film of some energy.The movie ends with Keats walking down the street with his new hotsy-totsy wife and wondering if they should peddle vegetables for a living. They have no money and their choices are not exactly limitless. A thought drifted into my mind. Sigmund Freud as Jewish immigrant living on Hester Street. Freud would have been 32 years old in 1898. I can almost hear the exchange between him and his wife. "Siggie, should we leave the soda water out on the sidewalk or keep it in the shop?" And Freud stops and rubs his chin before replying, "YES and NO."
It was said that when Carol Kane was notified that she had been nominated for best actress, she had just returned home from the Unemployment Division."Hester Street" is the story of impoverished Jews at the end of the 19th century in New York City.A low budget film, it recounts the story of a woman arriving from Europe with her young son to her husband, who has been in the U.S. for a while.Her husband has become a real "American" while she will struggle to assimilate. Fact is, she just can't do that.To make ends meet, a border lives in the house which was a very common practice then. (Kane winds up with him by the end of the film.)Doris Roberts, in a brief appearance, is funny with her line that 2 women with their rear ends can't be in the same kitchen at one time.As the couple, Carol Kane and the late Steven Keats are perfect examples of a Jewish couple, whose relationship was obviously arranged in Europe. They really have nothing in common other than their Jewish faith, and this becomes quite evident once the Kane character joins her husband in America.By film's ending, the couple are divorcing by getting the Jewish "get." (divorce) By Jewish law, the husband can marry immediately but the wife will have to wait for 90 days before she can do this.Kane's acting is excellent, especially with the effective use of Yiddish which she heard quite frequently in her Cleveland home.The set decorations are excellent. You feel that you're in the typical Jewish home of that period.
Carol Kane never really found her niche in the movies--only when she switched to sitcoms did her googly-eyed craziness really come off. But in 1975, before we'd gotten used to her comic bravado, she turned in a lovely, Oscar-nominated portrayal of an immigrant Russian Jew in New York that still stuns, even today. Quiet emotions permeate this careful, low-budget, somewhat slight film set on New York's East Side in 1896. Writer-director Joan Micklin Silver has a genuinely sly eye for detail that results in some amusing moments, but for the most part it's a human drama in a thoughtful key which builds momentum as it goes along. **1/2 from ****