A Price Above Rubies

About A Price Above Rubies

A Price Above Rubies was a 1998 movie directed by Boaz Yakin, starring Renée Zellweger as a young woman who finds it hard to adapt to the restrictions imposed on her by the Hasidic community of her husband, played by Glenn Fitzgerald. Reviews of the movie were mixed, though generally positive to Zellweger's performance. The title is a biblical quote. Proverbs 31:10, in the King James translation, says "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies."

The film tells the story of Sonia (Zellweger), a young Brooklyn woman who has just given birth to her first child. She is married, through an arranged marriage, to Mendel (Fitzgerald), a devout Hasidic Jew who is too immersed in his studies to give his wife the attention she craves. As a result, Sonia develops a relationship with Mendel's brother, the jeweller Sender (Eccleston), who brings her into the business. Sender rapes her, but she seems to accept this as the price for her newfound freedom. The jewellery business brings her into close contact with the young Puerto Rican jeweller Ramon (Payne), but when Sender finds out about their connection he reveals it to the family, and Sonia is divorced and ostracised.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the movie three stars. While impressed by Zellweger's "ferociously strong performance", he found the film did not teach us "much about her society", and that the Hasidic community could have been treated in greater depth. Charles Taylor of Salon likewise appreciated Zellweger's performance, while also finding the cultural aspect treated too superficially. He described Sonia's choices as "clichés left over from the Liberated Woman movies of 20 years ago", and the movie generally as "that old middle-of-the-road groaner about the good and bad in every race". Maria Garcia of Film Journal International was more positively inclined to the movie, and called it a "beautifully wrought, skillfully rendered and brilliantly acted film".