Awesome Movie

A lot of fun.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

In 1921 a young Polish immigrant Ewa Cybulska (Marion Cotillard) arrives at Ellis Island with her sister Magda (Angela Sarafyan), who suffers from tuberculosis. The two are about to be deported when Ewa runs into a white knight Bruno Weiss (Joaquim Phoenix) offering her home and security, while arranging for Magda to be hospitalized. The offer turns out to be double-edged, as Ewa is unwillingly forced into prostitution. Bruno has an unhealthy obsession with her, as does his cousin Emil (Jeremy Renner), and the two end up in a fatal confrontation.Such is the plot-line of James Gray's lushly photographed and scrupulously staged melodrama that works hard to recreate the atmosphere of early Twenties New York in the throes of Prohibition, when everyone, it seems, has their price - the police, the bourgeoisie, members of the prison services. Bruno thrives in this kind of environment - a would-be impresario working at what he describes as a "theater" but is in truth a burlesque with a brothel attached, he takes pleasure in presenting his "girls" in a variety of grotesque pageants. As a well-brought up Catholic girl Magda cannot and will not accept what she is asked to do, even though she knows this is the only way for her to raise money to pay for her sister's hospital care.The plot unfolds at a snail's pace, concentrating more on Bruno's degenerating state of mind as his obsession with Magda becomes more and more unhealthy. In the end he keeps her as a physical and emotional prisoner; even when she does try to escape him, he keeps coming back unexpectedly. Joachim Phoenix registers his state of mind through a range of facial expressions, coupled with outstanding eye-work, as he looks wildly round to see if anyone is trying to steal Magda from him. In contrast Cotillard and Renner offer low-key characterizations; they are much more concerned with the day-to-day business of survival in an amoral world. Cotillard's countenance seldom changes; she has encased herself in a protective emotional shell and refuses to emerge from it until the every end when she is restored to her sister. Emil (who performs under the moniker Orlando the magician) has a specialty act where is quite literally disappears onstage; this serves as a suitable visual metaphor for a world where the dispossessed quite literally disappear from public view into dark tunnels and seedy tenement- blocks.While THE IMMIGRANT might not have too much to say about human relationships, it deserves praise for the way it shows the protagonists struggling to survive in post-World War One America, a time that historians tell us was perceived by the bourgeois as one of freedom and hedonism (fueled by the bootleggers), but was certainly not the same for those existing further down the social scale.

Don't boil the movie down to one person/performance. Although if you do, you should be able to acknowledge the weight they are pulling here. The pacing might not be your thing, but the way the characters are portrayed is really great. There is a lot of gray areas to be dealt with here. Talk about more than 3 shades of it then ... Which not every movie can claim by the way! Just saying.You have to really dig the pace or you won't like the movie. It's a really hard story to follow, not because it's too fast, but because it's slow and might feel unnerving for some. But real life would be even more dragging than that. I like how the movie works and how they played certain things out. Sacrifices have to be made, to reach ones goal ... but what is the price to pay?

Marion Cotillard puts on an impressive performance as a Polish woman immigrating to the United States in 1921. Upon arriving on Ellis Island, she has one bad experience after another. We see how even today people trying to enter the United States - most of them from Latin America - are more likely to spend time in detention facilities. Worse still, politicians claim that people move to the US to import drugs or steal our jobs.Like I said, it's a good movie. Usually one whom I've seen in glamorous roles, Marion Cotillard pulls off this waif-like role perfectly. Darius Khondji's cinematography gives the viewer the feeling of a truly grim existence. I recommend the movie.

I was eager to see The Immigrant, curious about how the filmmakers would handle the Polishness of the lead character, Ewa Cybulska (played by the wonderful French actress Marion Cotillard). Would there be any Polish spoken? Would Cotillard handle her role as well as Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice? Although the film is sometimes a little too pat, a little too Hollywood, I needn't have worried about the authenticity of the characters, and the film handles the unsavory aspects of the lives of immigrants in 1921 New York with discretion. What surprised me most about the film is the way it tackled the centuries old tension between ethnic Poles and Polish Jews. Ewa is a naive arrival from Poland to Ellis Island, where she and her sister are detained because the sister has tuberculosis and must be deported. One always suspects that this checking was deliberately done on the other side of the ocean, after passage had been paid. Be that as it may, devoted to her sister and her Catholic religion, Ewa soon falls victim to a scheme that involves payoffs and bribes and falling into the clutches of a volatile Jewish schemer, Bruno Weiss, who promises to bankroll the sister's freedom. Desperate and alone, Ewa sees no other choice but to play along and put a price tag on her body in scenes that are sometimes more comical than lurid. Played by Joaquin Phoenix with all the tension and weirdness we've come to expect from this strange actor, her pimp falls in love with her-- as does a magician in Weiss's sleazy burlesque show. Ewa's volatile relationship with the two men--her conflicted pimp and his romantic cousin--leads to a surprising conclusion. This is very much a Hollywood film but very much worth seeing.