The Immigrant

Of late we have seen a great many period, dramatic films that have been based on a person, place or even book based on a true story, however with "The Immigrant", we have in the offing a story totally fiction written directly for the screen. This makes this film almost original considering it's not based on anything factional which makes this refreshing.

Ellis Island, New York. January 1921. In search of a new start and the American dream, Ewa Cybulska (Marion Cotillard) and her sister Magda (Angela Sarafyan) sail to New York from their native Poland. When they reach Ellis Island, doctors discover that Magda is ill-- lung disease that could be contagious, and the sisters are then separated. Ewa is released onto the streets of Manhattan while her sister is quarantined. Alone, with nowhere to turn and desperate to reunite with Magda, she quickly falls prey to Bruno Weiss (Joaquin Phoenix), a charming but wicked man who takes her in and manipulates her into prostitution-- using the money she makes as to pay for her sister's care at the hospital as justification.
And then one day Ewa encounters a charming man who happens to be Bruno's cousin, Emil (Jeremy Renner) who, professionally, is the debonair magician Orlando. He sweeps Ewa off her feet and quickly becomes her only chance to escape the nightmare in which she finds herself.

Others to round out the cast are Dagmara Dominiczyk as Belva, Jicky Schnee as Clara, Yelena Solovey as Rosie Hertz, owner of the theater, Maja Wampuszyc and Ilia Volok as Edyta Bisticky and Wojtek Bistricky, Ewa's aunt and uncle, Antoni Carone as Customs Officer Thomas MacNally, Patrick Husted as Priest, Patrick O'Neill as Leo Straub, Sam Tsoutsouvas as Oskar Straub, Robert Clohessy as Immigration Officer and Adam Rothenberg as Officer DeKeiffer.

This is directed by James Gray ("Little Odessa" '94, "The Yards" 2000, "We Own the Night" '07, "Two Lovers" '08), and considering his resume which doesn't really cover period type films, he did an outstanding job. He has worked with Phoenix before in "We Own the Night", and through that and this film, he has demonstrated how well he and Phoenix work so effectively together. Both Phoenix and Cotillard shined in this, so much so, that their performances smell of possible Oscar material. It was written by Gray and Ric Menello, and allowing the fact that there were a couple of very small places of some jumping around in script, this was a very solid script and story.

This isn't a warm and fuzzy feeling film with a couple of twists and turns which makes it seem almost like a soap opera, but isn't life occasionally like a soap opera in our own lives at times?

Out of 4 Stars: 3.5                       Rated: R                          118mins.