'Gett' and 'The Heidi Chronicles'

Viviane (Ronit Elkabetz) has made a choice: After almost 20 years of a miserable marriage, she wants a divorce. That sounds simple to us in secular Western society. But under Israeli law, there is no civil marriage or divorce; matrimony is controlled by the Orthodox rabbinate, who decide who can get married or not. A woman can file for a divorce (gett), but that can take years, owing to a bias that keeps wives shackled to their husbands (and, far less often, vice versa). It’s an overwhelmingly punishing situation for women, making a contested divorce practically impossible.

So for two agonizing hours, we sit beside Viviane in a claustrophobic Israeli courtroom while she fights for her choice and for her freedom. Her lawyer, Carmel, tries to prove cause for divorce — namely, emotional cruelty, passive-aggression, domination, psychological punishment, and neglect on her husband’s part. But Carmel’s arguments fall on the unresponsive ears of three Orthodox judges, who uphold the misogynistic code that refuses to recognize a woman’s individuality. Consequently, they keep postponing the case, wearing Viviane down until she breaks.

The courtroom scenes span five agonizing years in Viviane’s life, but the conflict is so fierce that the movie flies by. Ronit Elkabetz and her husband, Shlomi, codirected this gripping drama with almost unbearable intensity, keeping the camera focused tightly on Viviane’s suffering face. Simon Abkarian portrays Elisha, the cruel husband, with a fearful and stony resolve of a man determined to maintain control and supremacy at any cost. Still, Viviane perseveres all the way to the bitter end.

Back to the past of the past

Women and their choices: It’s a recurrent theme in film and theater this year. The choices — work, marriage, family, children, sexual identity — are crucial and self-defining. At first, I was worried when I heard that Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles was going to be revived on Broadway this spring. Would it be viewed as dated? As the song goes, we’ve “come a long way, baby” since 1989, when the Pulitzer-prize winning play premiered.

It turns out that the story of Heidi Holland’s three-decade-long journey is both enduring and enlightening. Wasserstein’s wistful retrospective of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s recaps the Vietnam protest era, women’s liberation, the Nixon years, and the Reagan years. All are depicted with projections on John Lee Beatty’s spare set and accompanied by our favorite music of the period (“The Shoop Shoop Song [It's in His Kiss] ,” “You Send Me ,” “Imagine ,” etc.)

With a talented cast directed by Pam MacKinnon, Heidi (Elisabeth Moss of Mad Men fame) faces the challenge of achieving a so-called “10” – namely, a perfect balance between work and marriage. The problem is that there are two men in her life. Scoop Rosenbaum (Jason Biggs) is an ambitious editor who turns out to be a womanizer, while Peter Patrone (Bryce Pinkham) is a charming pediatrician who turns out to be gay. In the end, Heidi opts to remain single and adopt a baby on her own: choices that are common now, but uncommon 25 years ago, when the play was written.

Other women, other choices

So Heidi’s revival offers reassurance that we’ve come a long way, indeed, although we still have a way to go. That’s clear from the choice that Charlotte makes in The Mystery of Love & Sex, Bathsheba Doran’s earnest comedy-drama now playing at Lincoln Center. Charlotte (Gayle Rankin) has known since childhood that she was attracted to women, but she doesn’t know how to deal with it. Early in Act I, she spends the night with Jonny, her dearest friend, during which time she strips naked, lies down on her dorm room bed, and commands him to deflower her. Frightened and confused about his own sexual identity, Jonny (Mamoudou Athie) cowers in a corner and refuses. This rejection is just what Charlotte needs to turn to another woman, causing a chain reaction in Jonny’s own journey of self-discovery, not to mention those of Charlotte’s parents, locked in an unsatisfying marriage.

“I am worthless and superior, embarrassed and humiliated. I envy women I don’t even know or like,” says Heidi at one point. “And suddenly I stopped competing with all of them.” Heidi finally overcomes her sense of worthlessness by making the personal choices that define her. “I hope all our daughters feel worthwhile,” she says, looking to the future.

As today’s films and plays show, they will, as long as they give up the notion of perfection (Heidi’s “10”) and bravely make the choices they must make to define themselves, no matter how difficult they are.

Above right: Moss and Biggs in The Heidi Chronicles.