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Movie Review: 'Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer'

Richard Gere is sneakily brilliant in the quietly charming Norman.

By Sean PatrickPublished 7 years ago 3 min read
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As a critic, it’s hard not to get tired of seeing the same kind of movie over and over again. Conventional three-act stories with stock heroes and predictable villains or simple romances with happy endings get tiresome after a while. It’s really nice to experience a movie with a different style, even if that movie isn’t entirely satisfying. The new movie Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer is, at the very least, a nice departure from the norm.

Norman Oppenheimer is rather strange and kind of pathetic. He is the type of man who insinuates himself into the business of others. When we meet Norman, he is accosting the assistant of a high-powered New York financier and attempting to finagle a meeting that he hopes might make him some money. Norman’s business isn’t much of a business, you see; he considers himself a consultant whose job is to connect one person to another person in hopes that each will give him something for making the connection between the two.

We get no sense of how successful Norman is as a ‘consultant’ but he has a nice suit, and when he meets an Israeli politician who he sees as a business opportunity, he’s able to drop a big bucks present on him, though not without wincing at the price. Norman hopes to get the politician, Micha Eshel (Lior Ashknazi) to attend a dinner being held by another New York big shot in hopes that making the connection will create opportunities for himself.

Three years after this scheme fails, we find that Norman and Micha have remained friends and for once Norman’s schmoozing has paid off. Micha is now the Israeli Prime Minister and when he spies Norman at a New York fundraiser, he welcomes him as if he were family — family he doesn’t speak to regularly and does not return phone calls to, but still family. Norman’s new connection, no matter how tenuous, remains lucrative to him as the financiers who would not meet with him before are suddenly eager to do business.

Norman’s glad-handing and braggadocio, however, eventually catches up with him and as we watch, Norman’s house of cards catches a very bad breeze. Norman, the movie, is a tad confusing at times. The stakes are a little murky and convoluted but the central performance by Richard Gere is very strong and manages to overcome some of the plotting issues of the film. After beginning the film very uncomfortablly with Norman’s obnoxious glad-handing, he does become rather oddly endearing and mysterious as we come to find that Norman has been lying to us as much as he’s been lying to his supposed friends.

It only occurred to me as I was writing this review just how little we get to know Norman. His background, his business, and where he lives are never seen on screen. We get scraps of information about him, but he shares nothing. An investigator gives us some background but the main thing we actually know about Norman is that he’s Jewish and highly allergic to peanuts. Beyond that, he’s a mystery and a complete rarity among lead characters in movies.

Norman lies for a living and even lies to us, but we are so charmed by his underdog act we can’t help but like him. The trick pulled off by Richard Gere and writer-director Joseph Cedar is kind of wonderful. Until I began writing this review, I didn’t even notice it. It’s like a great con game, only Norman was being sincere when it counted and you can’t help but appreciate that in a strange sort of way. We’re hoodwinked by this character and it’s really fun to realize it so long after the movie ended.

Norman is one of the sneakiest pleasures of 2017.

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About the Creator

Sean Patrick

Hello, my name is Sean Patrick He/Him, and I am a film critic and podcast host for the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast I am a voting member of the Critics Choice Association, the group behind the annual Critics Choice Awards.

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