Shira Haas is terrific in this Netflix miniseries.

The writing though? Eh. It follows predictable beats and feels stretched out. This plays like a two hour movie overextended by about three hours in order to become a four episode miniseries. There’s a lot of needless flashbacks to Haas’ characters’ past that slow the pacing and honestly, aren’t necessary. The ambiguity would’ve been perfectly fine. Or in a film, you might have a flashback or two but thats really all you’d need.

And the ending of the whole thing? It seems to cut off a little bit early, so I was dissatisfied there. And there are several instances of melodramatic, scripted nonsense sprinkled randomly into the narrative and into certain characters which is frustrating when you see it. 

It’s a story about one woman’s liberation from oppression brought on by her deeply devote, religious Jewish community. We follow Esther "Esty" Shapiro as she leaves behind her community and everything she knows and flees to Europe to be with her mother and pursue her passion for music. Meanwhile, her arranged husband from the community is tasked with finding her and bringing her back to the community. It’s a somewhat rousing story but, again, if it had been a movie it would’ve been much more effective.