A Stranger Among Us
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| A Stranger Among Us | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Sidney Lumet |
| Produced by | Steve Golin Howard Rosenman Sigurjón Sighvatsson |
| Written by | Robert J. Avrech |
| Starring | Melanie Griffith John Pankow Eric Thal Tracy Pollan Lee Richardson |
| Music by | Jerry Bock |
| Cinematography | Andrzej Bartkowiak |
| Editing by | Andrew Mondshein |
| Distributed by | Buena Vista Pictures |
| Release date(s) | July 17, 1992 |
| Running time | 109 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
A Stranger Among Us is a movie directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Melanie Griffith, released in 1992. It tells the story of an undercover policewoman's experiences in a Hasidic Jewish community.
It is often cited as one of Lumet's two failures of the 1990s, the other being Guilty as Sin (1993). Despite the poor reviews suffered by both these films, Lumet received the 1993 D. W. Griffith Award of the Directors Guild of America. Some of the criticism of A Stranger Among Us is based on comparisons with the Oscar-winning film Witness, which has a superficially similar plot. Similarly, Lumet's earlier film Fail-Safe was unfavourably compared to Dr Strangelove, but in that case both films have subsequently achieved cult status. Griffith's performance in the lead role has also been heavily criticised.
[edit] Plot
In the film, Emily Eden (Griffith), is a hardened homicide detective. She goes undercover to investigate the murder of a diamond-cutter. To do so, she lives with the family of the Hasidic rebbe, an elderly Holocaust survivor who is revered for his wisdom and compassion. He says to her,
"You and I have something in common: We are both intimately familiar with evil. It does something to your soul."
While living with the rebbe's family, she takes a liking to his son, Ariel, a young man who works as a diamond-cutter but teaches in the yeshiva and is expected to follow his father as the next rebbe. Ariel doesn't allow himself to be intimate with her--he actually follows every one of the 613 commandments that Orthodox Jews are expected to obey. He is waiting for his intended, or beshert, the daughter of a Paris rebbe whom he has not actually met. They are the subjects of an arranged marriage, but he believes that she is his ideal soulmate, chosen by God.
He is also studying the Kabbalah, which is regarded as rather daring for a man under forty.
The crisis of the film is when Emily finds out that the "inside man" in the murder plot is the rebbe's adopted daughter, Mara, who had been living a disorderly life until the future murder victim, Jacob Klausman, had introduced her to the rebbe. Afterwards, she had joined the community as a baalat tshuva, "one who has returned," and followed their rules, but a person from her dark past approached her and she let him into the Diamond Center to rob Jacob of diamonds worth about $750,000, and incidentally kill him. This is all Emily needs to solve the case and arrest Mara, but when returning to the rebbe's home with Ariel finds Mara has taken the rebbe's daughter hostage. After an attempt to negotiate, Mara knocks out Emily, and Ariel shoots Mara with Emily's gun.
The film ends with the wedding of Ariel and his beshert.
