Diamonds

It is a rare thing to see hasidic community as shown in show. Culture, religion, traditions, family, business, all were depicted as close to real life as possible. The plot is great, the cast is amazing, the intense is all the way to the end. It is sad the way things kept happening to this family, but it is refreshing to see how intelligent the members of the family are, each trying to carry the burdens to protect the family. The love situation is another great story thoughtout the entire show. Great understand of the religious rituals and ceremonies. Highly recommended to watch and I wish another season is in the thoughts of producers.

This series provides a nice insight into jewish culture and into the diamond industry in Antwerp. The dense atmosphere that goes with a relatively closed culture that has it's own rules and values, is well portrayed.

But these are probably the most interesting aspects of this series. The story itself is all over the place with no clear plot in sight. There's a constant back and forth between plans, their failures, the repairs, threats that come and go. Continuous fuss on who's loving who and why or why not. It gets irritating at some point.

Acting is poor (especially the actors playing their roles in the district attorney ofices) to mediocre. Somehow you keep hanging in there waiting for a new unexpected twist in the storyline, but it never comes. There's quite a few unlikable characters her of which the female district attorney stands out. For some of the characters it's more or less clear why they have to be unlikable, for the district attorney this is unclear. Her unlikeability really has no function other than stirring up things at the office without this being needed or essential for the story.

There's the suggestions of development of the characters, but also this does not seem to go anywhere. This series has onsets to all kinds of developments in the storyline but is hardly ever able to deliver.

I liked the scenery, the insight given into a culture. Definitely not bad, but all in all just too little to justify a high rating.

The story and the acting are really good and convincing. I was especially moved by Marie Vinck, who plays Gila, and her chemistry with the equally talented Kevin Janssens.

Robby Cleiren (playing Eli Wolfson) and Ini Massez (playing Adina Glazer) were amazing. I really appreciated when Adina Glazer declared she is the first major female diamond trader in four generations in their community.

The series' atmosphere managed to describe dutifully the situation of the diamond industry in Antwerp as "not what it used to be", meaning that a large number of Jewish diamond manufacturers and traders have been replaced over the years by others.

My only criticism of Rough Diamonds is that Orthodox Jews in Antwerp usually do not speak with the local Antwerp accent.

Rough Diamonds is an exception to many of the recent Netflix originals. It is an excellent series, it is authentic, it has no drugs or explicit sex, and no foul language. Queenmaker was another great series with a clean ending; you don't have to wait for season 2. House of Cards, Money Heist, Delhi Crime, Queen's Gambit, Night Agent, and Marcella are good examples of what Netflix should focus on. In the past Netflix licensed excellent TV series like Revenge so that we could watch them without commercials. That was the biggest value proposition for us. Many of the recent originals are pretty bad, full of explicit sex, drugs, foul language with f and mf words. Many have actors who do not belong in the script but are there to satisfy diversity. We love the Korean, Northern European, some other foreign shows.

First things first. If you want to watch this show in English, don't even think about going for the dubbed version. I have watched three episodes with subtitles and one dubbed trailer. The dubbing just does not convey the characters, voices, subtext, or feelings well at all. That's not the fault of the voice-over actors, it's just the nature of dubbing. Unless you are visually impaired or have difficulty reading for other reasons, the subtitles are a better way to go by far.

So, this is a very solid, well acted family/crime drama with good production value. It captures the sub-culture of this extended family and their small Orthodox community quite well. I'm not Belgian or Orthodox myself but I am Jewish and it feels reasonably authentic to me. The primary actors are well cast, even the smaller roles like the patriarch and the local butcher. Shout-out to the young actor playing the main character's English son. He's quite good, very natural and likable.

So far the pacing is good and keeping me invested. The story of the "prodigal son" returned is always a good start. When you add the layer of the son having rejected the strict parameters of his family's religion and been cast out, having to make a new identity, it becomes more compelling. That part is actually very true to life and I find it fascinating.

Of course some of it is far-fetched, not so much the straits in which this old diamond-dealing family finds itself as the way the prodigal son (Noah) has transformed. I suppose it makes sense, since he would have been very young when he left (early 20s) and 15 years have passed. Still, sometimes the show relies on "tough guy" tropes from American and I assume British shows to inform his actions, words and demeanor, and it doesn't always work.

This is especially true when he uses English phrases and words out of the blue. They are only sprinkled in here and there but they always take me out of the moment. I'm American. I recognize and understand the words, I just don't know why this Belgian guy would be using them, particularly when he is speaking to Albanians? And the actress playing his son's grandmother, who is supposed to be English, uses a disjointed combination of Cockney and other accents that are clearly inauthentic.

But overall, I don't care much about accents. They are hard to get right and the actors are all doing a fine job with the stuff that really matters. It is at heart a family drama with some business and crime matters woven through it, and as that it works. Also, there is really nothing else on Cable right now like it. So, I recommend it.

Also, it makes me really think diamonds are just not all that and cost more in blood and treasure than they are really worth. But maybe that's just me.