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Margit (Nastassia Kinski) and Peter (Tony Goldwyn) live in Hungary during the early fifties. As Peter relates, a good deal of his friends have been sent to prison, for no good reasons, and his publishing business shut down. In addition, Margit experienced a traumatic loss which changed her forever. Therefore, they make plans to escape from communist Budapest and immigrate to America. They plan to take their two daughters along but a last minute, horrendous glitch makes it necessary for them to leave their one year old daughter, Suzanne, behind and in the care of a peasant farm couple in the Hungarian countryside. Climbing under barbed wire and around spotlights, they make their escape with their older daughter. Yet, understandably, when they make it to Los Angeles, Margit and Peter never stop writing letters to government officials, in order to secure the immigration of their little lost girl. Suzanne, meanwhile, loves her adoptive parents and simple home. Yet, when she is six, Suzanne is torn away from the only mother and father she knows and sent to America to meet and live with her blood relatives. After such turmoil for everyone, will happiness follow? This is one great movie that will have you crying at the beginning, the middle, and the end. It is based on a heartbreaking true story and it is certainty that any viewer will be tremendously moved by its happenings. The cast is stupendous, with Kinski and Goldwyn doing a wonderful job as the brave but sorrowful parents. Scarlett Johanssen plays Suzanne as she ages, and she is terrific, but so is the little lady who plays the younger version left behind in Hungary. Then, too, the settings, costumes, cinematography, script and direction are all top notch. In summary, no one who loves motion pictures should really miss this film. It has a story that grabs the viewer by the heart and never, ever lets go.
score 9/10
inkblot11 31 July 2007
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1703972/ |
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22-3-2021 04:07:18