By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Joseph Cedar
Cast: Richard Gere, Lior Ashkenazi, Michael Sheen, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Josh Charles, Harris Yulin, Dan Stevens, Steve Buscemi and Hank Azaria.
Rating: Very Good.
Writer/Director Joseph Cedar brings “Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer”, a drama that brought interesting results and very good performances.
The movie tells the story of Noah Oppenheimer (Richard Gere), a New York Strategy Consultant who befriends Micha Eshel (Lior Ashkenazi) a politician from Israel.
Three years later, Micha Eshel will become the Prime Minister of Israel and Norman´s life will change forever since he did a good thing and help someone who was in a low point in his life.
However Norman´s relationship with The Prime Minister will bring him problems to his life and he will need to help himself instead of helping other before it´s too late.
One of the things that I enjoyed of “Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer” was the characters of the film and that it was very straight forward from the beginning.
The screenplay by Joseph Cedar and his directing were very sharp and he got the best of his actors in this film and directed brilliant performances.
The narrative that Cedar used for this film was very interesting since it was told in a very original way and we see in the character of Norman Oppenheimer a mysterious man that has a lot of struggle and a lot of internal conflict which is one of the elements that made the movie very interesting.
The journey for Norman´s character is very well written and we see a man who tries hard on reaching his goals and of course his credibility which by the midpoint of the film until part of the third act is tested and Cedar was very smart on using the elements that he had on his disposal.
I must say that this is Richard Gere´s most fine performance of his career for the way he played his character. He played with so much joy and as an audience member I feel for him and I enjoyed seeing him in this role. The last performance that I was convinced by Richard Gere was “Internal Affairs” where he portrays Dennis Peck, a terrifying character and totally the opposite of the characters that Gere usually plays.
Other elements that I liked from “Norman…” was the editing that it was very fast and sharp as well as the cinematography which I liked how the played with the contrasts ofeach and every single characters of the film.
I really liked the third act and the climax of the film that it was really smart and totally surprising since I never expected that ending.
Another interesting thought of the film is that I felt that it was a criticism of how we live in the society today and towards politics that most of the things are a house of cards and Joseph Cedar was very smart and how to portray both worlds from the perspective of a man that besides being lonely likes to help people and the other from the political world that it is a cruel and everybody everybody wants a piece of the pie.
“Norman: The Moderate Rise and Fall of a New York Fixer” is one of the biggest surprises of this year and I give a huge recommendation.