Susan Granger’s review of “The Immigrant” (The Weinstein Company)
Escaping from war-torn Poland after their parents were killed, Ewa Cybulska (Marion Cotillard) and her sister Magda (Angela Sarafyan) sail through the mist past the Statue of Liberty and land at Ellis Island in 1921, hoping to make a new start and aspiring to the American dream. Problem is: Magda has tuberculosis and is quarantined indefinitely in an infirmary, while Ewa is destined for deportation back to Poland after a naturalization officer classifies her as a person of questionable morals because of her behavior during the crossing. At the Travelers Aid Society, Ewa is ostensibly rescued by Bruno Weiss (Joaquin Phoenix), a predatory pimp who produces burlesque shows. Rejected by her aunt and uncle in Brooklyn, Ewa reluctantly turns to prostitution, joining Belva (Dagmara Dominczyk), another of Bruno’s “doves” at the sleazy Bandit’s Roost Club, and establishing a relationship with Bruno’s free-spirited cousin Orlando the Magician (Jeremy Renner), who entices her to run away with him.
Co-written specifically for Ms. Cotillard by Richard Menello with director James Gray (“Little Odessa,” “The Yards,” “Two Lovers”) and photographed in sepia tones by Darius Khondji (“Seven,” “Evita”), it’s a melodrama that’s drenched in the tawdry, gritty, Prohibition-era atmosphere of the huddled masses, trying to survive in crowded, de-humanizing tenements and punctuated by operatic excerpts from when Enrico Caruso (Joseph Calleja) performed for Ellis Island detainees.
Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard (“La Vie en Rose”) delivers a subtly heartbreaking portrayal as the sensitive, conscience-stricken Catholic émigré, while Joaquin Phoenix (“Her,” “The Master”) captures the inherent complexity of manipulative, yet compassionate Bruno Weiss. Not surprisingly, James Gray admits that the story was inspired by tales told by Russian Jewish family members, and Bruno’s character was molded after Max Hochstim, a real-life pimp who frequented Gray’s great-grandfather’s Lower East Side restaurant, often accompanied by a bevy of attractive women.
In English and Polish with English subtitles, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Immigrant” is a slow-paced, sinister 7, a strangely unpredictable period piece that penetrates the soft underbelly illusion of the American experience.
