Norman just manages to pull it off
Cast does its best to straddle cracks in the screenplay, and it turns out to be enough
It would be churlish to call Norman a tragic fall in the career of writer/director Joseph Cedar. Still, his last two features, the Hebrew-language war drama Beaufort (2007) and that rare beast, a Talmudic Studies comedy called Footnote (2011), were both nominated for a best foreign-language Oscar. Norman, performed mostly in English within New York’s Jewish community, is unlikely to receive any Oscar love, though it does have its own moderate charms.
In Norman, Richard Gere stars as Norman Oppenheimer, founder and CEO of Oppenheimer Strategies. It says so right on his business card, but what that means is a little harder to define. The film calls him a fixer, though the Yiddish term would be “macher,” sometimes translated as a broker, an agent or even a swindler. Oppenheimer is sometimes all of those things, but not consistently any one of them. When a curious colleague (Charlotte Gainsbourg) asks him to explain his job, he answers her question with a question. “What do you need? I help you get it.”
Norman is a fascinating character. Throughout the film, which spans several years, he is always dressed in the same camel hair coat, flat cap and checkered scarf, making him appear both well-kempt and homeless. He walks with a weird, rolling shuffle, as though he used to be overweight and never changed his gait when he slimmed down.
When he talks to people he gets in close, like a lover — or a pickpocket. He doesn’t understand the word “no,” and can instantly reformulate an angry brush-off into “a good conversation.” He even seems to believe it himself.
The plot of Norman can be as hard to get a handle on as is Norman. Attending a Jewish event in New York, Norman spots Israeli government functionary Micha Eshel (Footnote’s Lior Ashkenazi) and decides to make the man his new best friend by buying him a pair of extremely expensive shoes. This random act of mercenary kindness pays off when, three years later, Micha has become prime minister of Israel.
Suddenly, Norman’s sphere of influence expands like an exploding star. Cedar illustrates the change with a scene in which everyone at a party slows down except Norman, who seems to be living and thinking at superhero speed.
The complex plot is the film’s biggest stumbling block. Cedar introduces a next-generation fixer in the form of Hank Azaria (less dapper but just as driven as Norman), but isn’t sure what to do with him once he arrives. And the relationship between Norman and Micha never quite gels; the two haven’t really spent enough time together for their bond to make sense.
But the cast does its best to straddle the cracks in the screenplay, and it turns out to be enough. Gere, 67 but still spry, is both likable and infuriating in the role of Norman. We may question the means to that moderate rise, but surely he doesn’t deserve such a tragic fall, either.