Movie Review: 'Norman'
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- We've seen plenty of Richard Gere the movie star and Richard Gere the leading man down through the years.
But Norman features Richard Gere the character actor.
In this character-study dramedy, originally subtitled The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer, cast-against-type Gere plays Norman Oppenheimer, a small-time operator – a glorified con artist, as it were, aspiring to be a "consultant" – who befriends a young politician who, a few years later, becomes an influential world leader.
Norman's modus operandi is to "run into people," presumably accidentally, and then perform a favor out of the blue of a sort that somehow leaves the party in question more or less indebted to Norman, lest something comes up later that might invite or allow him or her to return the favor.
Yes, it's a sketchy calling, but that's Norman.
Is he annoying?
Oh, yeah.
But is his persistence at this "craft" downright admirable?
Yes again.
What Norman has done is develop a roster of highly placed contacts, movers and shakers who can turn to him as a conduit through which they can trade favors or secrets or money.
But the fascinating thing about him is that he also seems genuinely happy for the folks for whom he performs these services.
We know that Norman must live somewhere; he's too well-dressed to be homeless. And yet we only see him out and about in Manhattan, on the street or on the move or both.
And what he does along the way is tell stories and drop names and make useful connections with powerful people, always on the lookout for potential admittance to circles he's used to looking in on from the outside.
Norman does for others what they probably wouldn't do for themselves if he hadn't popped up out of nowhere. So he's forever setting up meetings for them with people they would probably never otherwise have encountered – and they're forever grateful.
American-born Israeli writer-director Joseph Cedar (Footnote, Campfire, Time of Favor), in his first English-language film, explores that invisible ethical border where a gift or a favor becomes a bribe.
In this case, Norman has bought a very expensive pair of shoes for a visiting Israeli politician, played by Israeli actor Lior Ashkenazi, at the time that he was the deputy to the deputy of a government agency.
But now he has been elected the Prime Minister of Israel and when he once again visits New York City, he is still wearing the shoes that Norman bought him.
That means that, via the shoes, nobody Norman has put himself in a position to be a major player himself within New York's Jewish community.
The humor that Cedar trades in might be described as cringe comedy, social interactions that are amusingly but unavoidably awkward.
And Gere dials down his characteristic charm quotient adroitly, offering up an endearingly quirky go-getter operating just this side of infuriating.
Norman is ever willing to strike out ten times, knowing that the eleventh time might come up golden and get him what he craves.
And Cedar has a talented ensemble supporting Gere, including Michael Sheen, Steve Buscemi, Dan Stevens, Josh Charles, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Harris Yulin, and Hank Azaria.
So we'll bump into 2-1/2 stars out of 4 for Norman, an intriguing character study that finds the gifted Gere in another gear.
