Waving, not drowning
In a just world, Richard Gere’s fixer would win an Oscar.
Israeli film-maker Joseph Cedar impressed in 2011 with the Oscarnominated Footnote, about father-son academic rivalry at a Jerusalem university. But Norman, whose full title includes “The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer”, is set in the
city of his birth.
Norman (Richard Gere) fancies himself as what is known in Yiddish as a macher – the fixer of the title – but he’s closer to the wannabe underdog they call a schlemiel. In flat cap and camel-hair coat, he walks the streets of Manhattan, white earplugs connected to his iPhone, schmoozing and soliciting contacts – often seeking nothing more than permission to use their names to approach other contacts.
His ultimate aim is never entirely clear: for Norman, the wanting is all, the achieving never better than unlikely. But he’s more blowhard than conman, and you can’t help liking him. “You’re like a drowning man trying to wave to an ocean liner,” says his nephew (Michael Sheen). “But I’m a good swimmer,” Norman replies, with a smile at once warm and bleak.
Everything changes when Norman meets an Israeli politician, Micha (Lior Ashkenazi, eerily like an older Steve Carell): at last he’s tied himself to a rising star, which is fine until that star starts falling.
Sheen is one of several bold, even provocative, casting decisions that put non-Jews in Jewish roles: Steve Buscemi, perfect as a deadly serious rabbi, is one of the film’s most enjoyable comic pleasures.
And Cedar makes intelligent use of split screen, not just as a narrative device but as a visual clue: Norman’s is a world in which your reflection is always more important than your essence.
But it’s Gere’s show. He’s never been Oscar-nominated (and his outspoken political views mean he probably never will be), but he surely deserves a mention next year for his nimble, touching work here: his hangdog look recalls mid-period Woody Allen, but for the most part he’s a latter-day Willy Loman, “riding on a smile and a shoeshine”. He’s a man looking for connection, and maybe he’s smart enough to know that’s all there is.
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