Norman: the Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer review – Richard Gere ups his game in iffy film

Quietly and usually without much of an audience, Richard Gere is having a bit of a moment. Unlike his similarly aged peers Liam Neeson and Bruce Willis, he’s rejected the senior stuntman route and instead made the decision to embrace his older self, taking on roles that are reliant on his age, often uncomfortably so. In Time Out of Mind, he played a homeless man struggling to reconnect with his estranged daughter, in The Benefactor he was an unhinged philanthropist making amends for his tortured past and, well, he even joined the cast of The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

But what’s missing is that buzzy comeback role that matches the effort and skill he’s exhibiting with a project worthy of his newfound talents. For the most part, it seems he might have found it in this offbeat drama from Footnote director Joseph Cedar, making his English-language debut.

Norman Oppenheimer is something of a gift to an actor. He’s a character full of acutely observed tics and gradually revealing idiosyncrasies, gently toeing the line between loser and sociopath. He’s a fixer, which translates to someone who tries to unite members of the successful elite with the promise of a deal, one that would also lead to great fortune for him. He has a roguish charm but it’s surrounded by desperation. He’s described as “a drowning man trying to wave at an ocean liner” and it’s his painful attempts to climb the social ladder that are so fascinating to watch.

There’s a Tom Ripley-ness about him, a mystery and a growing pack of lies that hint at a worrying lack of conscience. He wants to achieve status by association but as he gets older, as his clothes get rattier and his haircut more incongruous to those he wants to be seen near, he’s running out of time and he knows it. But it seems he might have finally caught a break. An association with an Israeli politician suddenly catapults him into a position he’s always wanted, invited to ritzy parties rather than watching them from outside. Yet to stay in the fast lane, Norman must up his game.

One of Gere’s greatest late-stage choices as an actor is to take the smooth persona with which he was typically associated with and drag it into the dirt. Norman would kill to be as suave as Gere but he’ll always be the socially inept interloper.

It’s one of his strongest performances in recent years and as a character study the film works well. As his scheming becomes more fraught and the film takes on the mechanics of a political thriller, things are less successful. Some of Cedar’s stylistic choices (such as a dreadful post-party montage of social interactions) bomb and there’s a heavily signposted affliction that feels clumsy, especially when it pays off in a predictable manner.

But Gere’s commitment to the role almost makes up for the film’s flaws. The quirk might not always work but Norman remains compelling. Less of a fixer and more of a fixer-upper.