Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Marion Cotillard | ... | Ewa Cybulska | |
Joaquin Phoenix | ... | Bruno Weiss | |
Jeremy Renner | ... | Orlando the Magician / Emil | |
Dagmara Dominczyk | ... | Belva | |
Jicky Schnee | ... | Clara | |
Elena Solovey | ... | Rosie Hertz (as Yelena Solovey) | |
Maja Wampuszyc | ... | Edyta Bistricky | |
Ilia Volok | ... | Wojtek Bistricky | |
Angela Sarafyan | ... | Magda Cybulska | |
Antoni Corone | ... | Customs Officer Thomas MacNally | |
Patrick Husted | ... | Priest | |
Patrick Holden O'Neill | ... | Leo Straub (as Patrick O'Neill) | |
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Sam Tsoutsouvas | ... | Oskar Straub |
Robert Clohessy | ... | Immigration Official | |
Adam Rothenberg | ... | Officer DeKeiffer |
1921. In search of a new start and the American dream, Ewa Cybulska and her sister Magda sail to New York from their native Poland. When they reach Ellis Island, doctors discover that Magda is ill, and the two women are separated. Ewa is released onto the mean 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, a charming but wicked man who takes her in and forces her into prostitution. And then one day, Ewa encounters Bruno's cousin, 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. Written by Wild Bunch
"The Immigrant", James Gray's newest film, while retaining some of the gritty dark-crime dramatics of his previous work, feels like a radical departure. Mainly because its an Ellis Island-era period movie set 100 years ago, and because its observed through the eyes of a female protagonist and her struggle against permanent blight and the inherent depression of the situational times.
Fleeing the brutalities of Trotsky's Red Army, Polish Ewa (Marion Cotillard) and her sickly sister arrive in New York cira 1920. When her sister is quarantined and both are threatened with deportation, Ewa is taken notice and saved by the faux-sensitive brothell pimp Bruno (Joaquin Phoenix) and blackmailed into prostitution. Just when Ewa may succumb to the sort of drab, bleak life that she was trying to allude, Bruno's cousin Orlando the Magician (Jeremy Renner) shows up and both men via their own quirky methods try to light a fire in the heart of the pretty foreigner.
In her best part since "Rust and Bone", Cotillard is Oscar worthy in a showy albeit poetic performance (made all the more impressive that she speaks Polish throughout most of it). Phoenix is superb as usual, as the repressed and impotent man who wants to think he's in charge. But Renner steals the show. Right when you think the movie is going to slide under the weight of the misery of its subject, his Orlando appears like a glowing gaslight of fun amongst the dim rooms and crowded corridors. Like his work in "American Hustle", its criminal that his spritely performance here will go unrewarded and under the radar.
Although the universal tale of Gray's film isn't exactly something we haven't seen before (from Kazan's bold "America, America" to Ron Howard's putrid "Far and Away") "The Immigrant" presents a rare and thoughtful experience, one in which we can learn something about the lives of long ago as well as our own.