Now that the first two episodes of the much-anticipated series, Unconditional, have been shown both on Keshet’s Channel 12 in Israel and on Apple TV worldwide, I can write a full review of this highly addictive, intricately constructed series, full of twists and turns.
Unconditional, which Adam Bizanski and Dana Idisis created, is about a mother, Orna (Liraz Chamami), whose daughter, Gali (Talia Lynne Ronn), a 23-year-old who finished her army service not long ago, is arrested in a Moscow airport and accused of drug trafficking. This happens while the two are stopping over on their way home from a trip to India.
Orna is a young mother who had her daughter at the age of 18, and she and Gali looked forward to this mother-daughter trip with special intensity, because they have been living with an unusual stressor for years.
That stressor turns out to be Gali’s father, Benni (Yossi Marshek), who was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease years ago. At 53, he can no longer function, although he still lives at home.
Orna alternates caregiving duties with a devoted Russian housekeeper, and Gali also pitches in. Both mother and daughter long to lose themselves in new sights, sounds, and tastes.
This backstory is introduced gradually, and the first episode shifts between Gali’s arrest and flashbacks to their trip through India.
From early on, it becomes clear that this is going to be more than the story of a mother’s attempt to free a daughter who had a few joints in her luggage.
The possibility is raised early on that Gali is no innocent victim, and this is the element that gives the series its edge.
Unconditional asks: How well do we know our adult children? Gali displays a certain willfulness and assertiveness that would annoy most parents, but is not uncommon. But in this case, her actions might be a sign that she is involved in something criminal, something far more serious than carrying around some drugs for her personal use.
As Gali is dragged off, she breaks away from the airport security personnel and whispers something in Orna’s ear, something that clearly puzzles and frightens her mother.
Later, what she tells her mother in that moment becomes the first clear sign that Gali is familiar with the inner workings of the Russian criminal justice system.
In flashbacks to India, it turns out that after a joyful mother-daughter reunion, Orna joins Gali, even though her daughter has already been traveling around India by herself.
Gali tells her mother she wants to spend two days with a friend and asks Orna to go to a resort on her own.
Orna is hurt and says she didn’t take all those malaria shots to spend days with a stranger, so she tags along with Gali, but the friend never shows up.
This incident is one of the memories from the trip that haunts Orna as she tries to figure out what is happening to Gali.
In Moscow, she is not allowed to see her daughter, nor is the public defender assigned to her case, who insists that the best outcome Orna can hope for is that her daughter will accept a plea bargain and will only get two years in prison.
However, Orna wants to see her daughter before telling the lawyer to make any deals, and a predatory hustler who came to her pretending to be a lawyer seems to be the only one who can help. A terrifying odyssey inside a prison does not bring Orna any closer to Gali or a decision, either.
Back in Israel, she starts a campaign to try to get the attention of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, whose representatives are not very helpful, and the public to help her fight for her daughter.
Orna’s husband no longer works, and they were never wealthy, so this crowdfunding campaign is necessary. They live in Kiryat Motzkin, a middle-class suburb of Haifa, where Benni used to run a brake-importing business.
She also enlists the help of Dori (played by French-Israeli singer Amir Haddad), an old friend and a Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) agent, with whom she had an affair.
He helps Orna try to make sense of the bombshell clue she discovers early on – this is in the trailer, so it’s not a spoiler – that Gali had three Polish men’s passports hidden so deeply in a Bambi-like stuffed animal that even the Russian police didn’t find them.
The series is greatly enhanced by Chamami’s excellent performance as Orna. She has had key roles in the series Bad Boy, in which she played a no-nonsense prison official, and in another show called Manayek, in which she played a policewoman.
Orna is the perfect fit for the leading role, and she holds our interest and sympathy from the beginning.
In a low-key way, the actress conveys the character’s utter panic and helplessness as she is forced to confront an uncaring, venal Russian prison system and judgmental, indifferent bureaucrats at home. We then cheer for her as she finds strength.
Lynne Ronn is a newcomer, and she does not seem to be acting at all. She comes across as one of those poised, confident female soldiers you might sit next to on a bus.
The rest of the supporting cast, including Haddad, who is sexy as the knowing security service agent, and Marshek, who is touching as the befuddled Benni, are all good.
Although I rarely comment on credit sequences, the one here is extremely effective and sets the tone for the entire series.
It consists of illustrations from what appears to be a children’s book, in the style of a Russian folktale, depicting a girl setting out into the snowy woods, where she encounters various wild animals, including a wolf in sheep’s clothing, an owl, and a bear that drags her away.
As I watched Unconditional, I assumed at first that the female figure was meant to symbolize Gali, but soon I came to see it as a stand-in for Orna, a woman who has lived an unremarkable life until now, and finds resourcefulness and courage she didn’t know she had when her daughter is taken from her.
Unconditional is the hero’s journey of a devoted parent who may be sacrificing herself for a child who has deliberately endangered them both, which makes this dark story even darker.
New episodes air on Keshet’s Channel 12 on Monday and on Apple TV on Friday.
Thelma and Louise: License to Live
IF YOU want to delve further into the girl-power theme, Thelma and Louise: License to Live is a new documentary that will be shown on Yes Docu and Yes VOD starting on May 14.
It examines the legacy of what directors Léni Merat and Joséphine Petit call “a feminist Western.”
After about half an hour of hearing people talk about how great Thelma & Louise was, I became restless and just wanted to see it again. It is available on Apple TV+.
The movie, a runaway hit 35 years ago, was directed by Ridley Scott and tells the story of two ordinary women, played by Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon, who become unlikely outlaws.
While the film was entertaining on every level, it also sparked a debate because of its central plot, in which Louise (Sarandon) kills a man who is raping Thelma (Davis).
They decide to head for Mexico because they are sure no one will believe them. Some commentators felt it was justifying and encouraging violence by women.
The filmmakers seemingly put to rest that argument neatly by contrasting the number of victims of Thelma and Louise – one – with the dozens massacred by male action heroes in blockbuster movies that no one said were meant to glorify murder.
The juiciest tidbit is about Brad Pitt, then an unknown, who plays a hitchhiker whom Thelma eagerly beds.
Three other actors competed for the role, but Davis said that Pitt was unquestionably the best. The also-rans? Grant Show, who went on to star in Melrose Place, Mark Ruffalo, and some guy named George Clooney. Screenwriter Callie Khouri won the film’s sole Oscar.
