While the fall festival is where studios go to launch their awards season contenders, it’s also where they test the waters with movies they aren’t quite sure about in terms of their Oscar potential. Such was the case with Sony Pictures Classics and “Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer” which played Telluride and TIFF, and didn’t make a big noise, though got some pleasant reviews (including one from us). So it’ll arrive next spring, and the first trailer is here.
Directed by Joseph Cedar (“Footnote“), and featuring a pretty great supporting cast including Lior Ashkenazi, Hank Azaria, Steve Buscemi, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Michael Sheen, and Dan Stevens, the story follows a fixer in New York City looking to impress an Israeli diplomat. Here’s the official synopsis:
Norman Oppenheimer (Richard Gere) lives a lonely life in the margins of New York City power and money, a would-be operator dreaming up financial schemes that never come to fruition. As he has nothing real to offer, Norman strives to be everyone’s friend, but his incessant networking leads him nowhere.
Always on the lookout for someone willing to pay attention to him, Norman sets his sights on Micha Eshel (Lior Ashkenazi), a charismatic Israeli politician alone in New York at a low point in his career. Sensing Eshel’s vulnerability, Norman reaches out with a gift of a very expensive pair of shoes, a gesture that deeply touches Eshel. When Eshel becomes Prime Minister three years later, he remembers.
With his very real connection to the leader of a major nation, Norman is awash in the respect he has always craved. Flush with his newfound feeling of success, Norman attempts to use Eshel’s name to leverage his biggest deal ever: a series of quid pro quo transactions linking the Prime Minister to Norman’s nephew (Michael Sheen), a rabbi (Steve Buscemi), a mogul (Harris Yulin), his assistant (Dan Stevens), and a treasury official from the Ivory Coast. Norman’s kaleidoscopic plans soon go awry, creating the potential for an international catastrophe he must struggle to prevent.
“Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer” opens next spring.