AN AMERICAN RHAPSODY

2001

The true-life story of writer/director Eva Gardos plays like a cold war soap opera. Her family fled Communist-ruled Hungary in the middle of the night, leaving her behind as a baby, because travel with a baby was too dangerous. She was to be sent to them later. In the meantime, she was cared for by relatives in the country. "Meantime" stretched to six years and young Szusi learned to think of these people as her real parents. When she was finally sent to America, where her parents were now American middle-class suburbanites, she never knew where she really belonged...in Hungary or America. At age 16, this rebellious American teen-ager returns to her native Hungary and her adoptive parents, only to learn a very important lesson about herself, her parents, and Hungary. Beautifully written and acted (by Nastassia Kinski, Tony Goldwyn and Scarlett Johansson,) director Gardos allows the story to unfold in a slow, deliberate way so that we learn all about this family, and also about how freedom can survive even under impossible circumstances.

4 Stars

NJB