Matir Agunot

This series has all the psychological resonance and complexity of a really rich novel. The filmmakers never tell us what to think or how to judge the situations and characters; they simply show the way real human beings interact. Much of the emotional power comes from showing how, for all of us, there are paths taken and not taken. I don't think a viewer needs to have any knowledge or connection to the particular location and thought-world of Orthodox Jewry; I'm an atheist non-Jew married to an atheist Jew and have been to Israel, and while this story took me to some very unfamiliar places every moment held my interest and elicited my sympathy for the characters, their dilemmas, and their chosen solutions. My usual fare of Euro crime thrillers may seem a bit thin after this.