Sick Product of a Sick System

People are voting emotionally.

Best movie ever!

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

After it's release in 2001, sixteen years later I "discovered this gem quite by accident. It is an amazing film; so well written and performed. Ms. Kinski is wonderful in this, as well as is Tony Goldwyn. A very young Scarlett Johansson shows the talent that she has exuded in future years. I highly recommend this wonderful movie!

Being the daughter of parents which also fled to American during the Cold War, this movie touched my heart. I watched it with my mother and two sisters. Since we all speak fluent hungarian, we did not need the subtitles which was a lot of fun, especially when we caught mistakes in the subtitles. The film brought back sad and scary memories to my mother. Tony Goldwyn did a good job speaking the language. The only criticism I have, is that it was unrealistic for the main characters to speak English as well as they did in such a short period of time. I doubt English was taught in the Hungarian schools back during that time. Also, it was not that easy starting a life in America at first. You had to work very hard and had very little, nothing was handed to you. The movie came across as though they lived comfortably quite easily and early on. Both my parents spent time in immigration camps in NY, which is were they met, they worked hard, scratched and clawed for everything they had. Not easy as it is now. Over all I liked the Film and still recommend it.

I loved this movie, although I found it sad. The little girl who played Suzanne as a child was phenomenal! Her eyes and facial expressions spoke volumes. When she tearfully told her father "I want to go home" it broke my heart. I can certainly understand that the mother wanted her child back, but considering the trauma it caused the child, I wish there had been some easier way to make the transition from well loved little Hungarian country girl to homesick, confused, misunderstood, (albeit brave) American child in L.A. suburbia. It did seem as though the parents and grandmother displayed selfish reasons for uprooting the child, never considering what it would be like from the child's point of view. I couldn't help but think that Zsuzi would have grown up to be a delightful teenager had she been left with her foster parents. She simply did not have the wherewithal to deal with being uprooted and transplanted with no warning, no preparation. No six year old, not even any 16 year old or 40 year old, for that matter, could deal with emotional trauma of this magnitude. I was left wanting to know MUCH MORE about this family ... did they return to visit Hungary? Did they openly keep in touch with the foster parents? How did this emotional upheaval affect Suzanne as an adult? I want a sequel.

If anyone can watch this heartbreaking tale without crying, you must have a heart of coal. Natasha, Scarlet, the war between Mom and daughter, the trip to Hungary, her reunion with the farm couple who adored her, oh my God. I saw this first in Santa Monica with a male friend who is a stolid and Stoic Estonian , and he sobbed. A movie of great passion and love. When I want to cry I watch it again.