the passion of marion cotillard

In the early 20th century, two sisters sail from post-war Poland for a new life in the United States. However, unfortunate circumstance soon befalls them: desensitized Ellis Island authorities separate the sisters (one is diagnosed with consumption and quarantined for six months), and the distant aunt and uncle expected to greet them are nowhere to be found. Cited as a person of questionable morals and liable to become a public charge, and with nowhere to go, the healthy sister is expected to be deported, but she is then spirited into the city by a mysterious gentleman who introduces himself as Bruno. A pimp who also provides female entertainment at a nightclub, he ushers the reluctant Polish woman into his world of illicit sex and flowing moonshine. Her Catholic upbringing and general sense of propriety render her reluctant to embrace her sympathetic, but also volatile new guardian, but her fear is obscured by her desperation: she is adrift in a foreign land and has an ailing sister to care for.

With its sumptuous, period-specific production design and shadow-shrouded, soft-focus photography, The Immigrant the new film by writer/director James Gray, is an evocative and gorgeous film which brings its 1920s world of apartments-as-brothels, underground bars, and thronged streets to vivid life. An aesthetic comparison to the Robert De Niro-centric sequences in The Godfather Part II is apt. The old-school technical wizardry is matched and complemented by the cast's committed and moving performances. Marion Cotillard tugs our heartstrings by exuding despair and elegance as heroine Ewa; Joaquin Phoenix, whom Gray previously directed in such films as We Own the Night and Two Lovers, rages and seduces as the conflicted Bruno; and Jeremy Renner rounds out the trio of leads, and steals a few scenes, as Bruno's estranged and more charismatic cousin, Emile, who earns his living touring as "Orlando the Magician." They are aided by a well-researched screenplay, one partly based on stories told to Gray by his own Polish-American family members. As a storyteller, Gray respects each of his characters and where he or she is coming from, whether it is Ewa and her fiery Catholic guilt or Bruno and his doomed bid to reconcile his brutal instinct for survival with his honest desire for love and respectability. As they care for and harm one another in equal measure, we the audience find ourselves invested in the fate of each of these marginalized, put-upon (American) dreamers, and they maintain a tight grip on us until the final shot, a profound image composed perfectly.

A-

The trio of main actors do very well here and the film presents itself with plenty of challenges along the way which it handled well. I did feel like there could have been even more with this film as there are hints to it along the way. A couple of examples being Ewa's dream where she is back at home (why not grasp at those flashbacks a bit more?) or diving into Bruno and Emile's troubles a bit more particularly since I feel Renner was robbed of some screen time. It's still a solid drama nonetheless.