An American Rhapsody (2001)

What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

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.

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!

This film has many mistakes (Hungary, Budapest in 50ies-60ies). Sometimes i was wondering why main characters don't use the expected language (for example, the parents argued in English, not in their native language; the father greets Zsuzsi in English when she arrives to America, not in Hungarian...). I can't imagine these situations could have happened this way. After all, I really loved this film. It's full of emotions, real feelings, I can understand most of the characters. I can't explain this, the film absolutely preoccupied me. The movie is based on a real story, and I felt it in every moment.

This is a story of love, under the background of the cold war. When Suzanne reached adolescent age, she was in crisis of her identity, and she traveled to Hungary. During the trip she knew how much selfless love she had from the adopting parents, grand mother and particularly her own mother to whom she was defiant. Knowing that she was loved, she could overcome the crisis. I recall the days of my daughter's crisis in the same age with Suzanne. Though the film has historic locale of Hungary in the cold war, what the film portrays is something universal which has strong power to make people empathize. Scarlett Johansson acted Suzanne in her adolescent age very well. But the adopting parents were most impressive. If I loved my daughter his way she would not have a crisis.

I had to pinch myself when I read a previous review calling this a profound cinematic work of art! I just hope that reviewer hasn't seen many films in order to make that statement. This is worse than most TV or direct to video films and respected critic Roger Ebert gave it three stars!?. The direction starts off promising. The escape from Communist Hungary is recreated in black and white that has the look and feel of an old film but after this it descends into mediocrity with a strong reliance on flashback and heavy-handed symbolism. The acting is pretty average all around except Scarlett Johanssen whose portrayal of the teenage Suzanna was good given the limitations of the script, which is pretty limited. What lowered it below being an average, sentimental TV drama was a general lack of respect for the history and culture of Hungary. The representation of 1960's Hungary is dreadfully inaccurate with various factual errors. Although much of the Hungarian scenes were shot on location in Budapest, the rural scenes were suspiciously Romanian. Much of the language was blatantly an English script translated, and therefore the Hungarian language is often used inaccurately and unrealistically, particularly the phrase "I love you" which is not said in the same way as in the English language. The final insult is that much of the "traditional" Hungarian music in the background wasn't actually Hungarian but of Slav origin. Although apparently a vaguely autobiographical story of Eva Gardos, the director, this film shows remarkable ignorance to it's subject matter. Not recommended and certainly not an example of a "new dimension" in filmmaking by any standards.