34 January 10 • 2019
jn

A 

news flash for members of the 
tribe who’
ve been kvelling over 
a Jewish woman on the U.S. 
Supreme Court for fully a quarter of a 
century: Ruth Bader Ginsburg long ago 
matriculated beyond a symbol of ethnic 
achievement.
This year’
s hit documentary RBG 
noted that Justice Ginsburg is an enor-
mously popular role model for women in 
their teens and 20s, and she has achieved 
pop culture celebrity to boot.
Now comes the release of On the 
Basis of Sex (now at The Maple; opening 
elsewhere tomorrow), which applies the 
Hollywood treatment to her beginnings 
as a smart but struggling lawyer and 
situates Justice Ginsburg smack in the 
mainstream.
To coin a Lincolnesque testimonial, 
now she belongs to the masses.
Director Mimi Leder and screenwriter 
Daniel Stiepleman (who happens to be 
Ruth and Marty Ginsburg’
s nephew) 
frame On the Basis of Sex as an under-
dog saga. And like a lot of underdogs in 
Hollywood movies, our heroine has a 
superpower that she only discovers — 
and masters — on her journey.
The movie is effective and ultimately 
inspiring, in a way that doesn’
t remotely 
challenge viewers other than to ask them 
to follow clever legal strategies. 
The film opens with Ruth’
s first days at 
Harvard Law School, where her husband 

Marty is in his second year. Immediately 
and repeatedly, Ruth (and the viewer) is 
reminded of her second-class status as a 
woman in a man’
s world.
It takes a while to reconcile the con-
fident Justice Ginsburg of public record 
with the somewhat skittish character 

that British actress Felicity Jones creates. 
On the one hand, as a wife and a mother 
who — like every other aspiring profes-
sional of the time — never wears pants, 
Ruth is plainly a grownup.
But she’
s patronized by everyone from 
the law school’
s WASPy dean (a villain-
ous Sam Waterston) to her husband (a 
stalwart Armie Hammer), and she risks 

being seen as a rabble-rouser (it’
s the late 
1950s) simply by standing up for herself.
Although the film does not conceal 
or finesse Ruth and Marty’
s Jewishness, 
it presents casual misogyny and the 
entrenched old boys’
 network, not 
anti-Semitism, as the obstacles Ruth 
needs to navigate. 
Consequently, she has 
to devise ways — both 
direct and elliptical — to 
raise the consciousness of 
every ally, including her 
devoted husband, before 
she can even challenge 
potential adversaries. 
While Marty certainly 
recognizes his wife’
s bril-
liance, he’
s a product of his 
upbringing and the times.

EXPLORING A 
RELATIONSHIP
On the Basis of Sex, or 
as it’
s referred to at your 
favorite corned beef dis-
pensary, RBG: The Early Years, devotes 
considerable screen time to the couple’
s 
relationship and, for many viewers, that 
will serve as the emotional heart of the 
film. Others will derive more pleasure 
from Ruth finding her footing and her 
voice as a scholarly attorney.
As Stipelman noted in an interview 
in San Francisco recently, “Coming out 

of law school, [Ruth] had three strikes 
against her: She was a woman; she was 
a mother; and she was a Jew. Any one of 
those things alone, law firms had taken 
the risk. It was the three together that 
made her unhire-able in their eyes.
”
Unable to find a job practicing law, 
Ruth takes a teaching position. Through 
a combination of determination, per-
sistence and luck, she comes across a 
unique case that addresses the inequities 
of gender discrimination: The com-
plainant, who looked after his mother 
but was denied the tax deduction for 
caregivers, is a man.
Earlier in the film, there’
s a crucial 
chain of events when Marty is diagnosed 
with cancer. Ruth not only took care of 
him (and their small daughter), but got 
them both through law school. That 
experience as a caregiver gives her both 
the empathy and the understanding to 
identify with and persuade her would-be 
client, and to research and argue the case.
The lengthy courtroom scene that 
comprises the film’
s last 20 minutes or so 
is genuinely effective and even emotion-
al, despite the formulaic staging and the 
fact that we know Ruth will prevail. At 
the pivotal moment, we witness a char-
acter coming into her own, grasping her 
abilities and realizing her destiny.
And with that, the underdog becomes 
a superhero. ■

fi
 lm
arts&life

On the Basis of Sex

RBG biopic melds underdog and superhero themes.

aracter 
anti Semitism,

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Armie Hammer as Marty 
Ginsburg, Justin Theroux 
as Melvin Wulf and 
Felicity Jones 
as Ruth Bader 
Ginsburg star in 
On the Basis 
of Sex. 

Felicity Jones stars as 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg 

in On the Basis of Sex.

MICHAEL FOX SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS