Bald Ambition: Natalie Portman’s Latest Role as a Betrothed Hasid
“New York, I Love You,” which opened October 16, sees Natalie Portman star as a Hasidic bride in director Mira Nair’s (“Monsoon Wedding”) short. Portman’s portrayal of Rifka, an Orthodox 20-something, is a highlight of producer Emmanuel Benbihy’s (“Paris Je T’aime”) patchwork film, made up of eleven New York based romantic vignettes.
Rifka is feisty, self confident and independent. “We don’t come to 47th Street to chit-chat,” she tells diamond seller and Gujarati Jain, Mansuhkhbai (Irrfan Khan), after traveling to midtown Manhattan to haggle prices. Yet the two enjoy a brief cross-cultural intimacy, flirting over their respective dietary restrictions, before Rifka removes her sheitel revealing her bald head, shaved in preparation for impending marriage.
After this unexpected onscreen moment Portman goes behind the camera to make her directorial debut. In a short set in Central Park she focuses on the daughter of a mixed-race couple and a case of mistaken identity amongst New York’s nanny-hiring class.
It is interesting that Nair, a non-Jewish director, looks at ethnicity and endogamy by depicting an Orthodox wedding, whilst Portman analyzes racial stereotypes not traditionally associated with Judaism. Cross-cultural intimacies, indeed.
Watch a clip from “New York, I Love You” below:
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
