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Rated: R; Genre: Drama; With: Christopher Eccleston and Renee Zellweger

A PRICE ABOVE RUBIES Renee Zellweger, Christopher Eccleston, Julianna Margulies (1998, Miramax, R, $103.99) Zellweger glimmers with pent-up passion as Sonia, a young Jewish woman chafing in her marriage to a Hasidic scholar. But she's the only bright facet of this wanna-be art-house succes d'estime, which mistakes cliche and contrivance for dramatic development. After her brother-in-law (Eccleston) forces himself on her, then gives her a good job in the diamond trade, Sonia becomes a liberated woman with preposterous suddenness, haggling with merchants, schmoozing with customers, and falling in love with a Puerto Rican jewelry designer. Is it any wonder that her rigidly religious community casts her out? In the third act, Sonia finds inner peace as abruptly and unconvincingly as her other tectonic spurts of personal growth. It's a happy ending only she can feel good about. C-


Posted Sep 11, 1998
 

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