Publisher: CinemaSerf January 17, 2025
The eponymous young woman (Barbra Streisand) has been brought up by her father (Nehemiah Persoff) to be a free thinking and curious young girl, and one who is determined to get an education even though it is only boys who are allowed to go to university. When he dies, she hits on quite a riskily innovative idea. She will cut her hair and dress as boy. Voilà - "Anschel" is born and of he goes to further study the Talmud. Once there, she befriends "Avigdor" (Mandy Patinkin) and his fiancée "Hadass" (Amy Irving) and her association with them gradually makes her realise that there is much more to life than books and philosophy. Life must be for living. Except, well perhaps no-one would be prepared for the favour her new friend asks of her; one that compromises the very purpose of her study and search for independence. It's at this point that what was a powerful and personable drama starts to come off the rails. There is a cruelty to the narrative that no amount of power-ballading is going to mitigate. I went from being broadly engaged by the "Yentl/Anschel" character to being really rather disgusted by the selfishness on display. Certainly that's partly a testament to the acting of Streisand and to the scene-stealing Irving, and it's a potent indictment of marital traditions that don't just exist within the Jewish community, but I still found the preparedness of this would-be scholar to engage in something quite so unkind rather put me off a story about which I no longer cared. The production design is authentic looking and the supporting cast for the first part of the film are engaging, lively and even a little mischievous. "Papa" and "A Piece of Sky" clearly demonstrate the Legrand/Bergman/Streisand partnership at it's most musically powerful but in the end did this film show us a woman bent on self-improvement or one just concerned about herself? I think however pertinent the purpose of a film may be, it's important for the audience to feel some sympathy with the plaintiff, so to speak. Here I started off like that, but quickly felt a lack of objectivity around the development of the lead characterisation led to the creation of a persona I didn't especially respect and I certainly didn't trust.