An American Rhapsody

Moving take of family disconnection and loss as a result of war and politics. Although Scarlett Johanssen has a very strong performance as Zsuzane I feel the younger version played by Kelly Endresz-Banlaki was the standout performance. Conveying with few words the stories message and feeling of loss and confused definition of home. Well worth watching.

In the Drama genre An American Rhapsody is a good movie. Not much action, but a story worth to be told. An emotional story about a kid left behind unwillingly by her parents in Hungary when everything went bad over there, and then to be raised by two lovely people before going to America. It was interesting to see a younger Scarlett Johansson and an older Natassja Kinski but the main star to me was the very young Raffaella Bánsági that did an excellent job playing her character. I saw it's the only movie she appeared in and I wonder why because for a child actress she did an amazing job. The movie has a good cast, and it's mostly dominated by the women that made this story a movie that will touch his viewers emotionally. Normally not the kind of movie I would go for but I certainly don't regret watching it.

Being the daughter of parents which also fled to American during the Cold War, this movie touched my heart. I watched it with my mother and two sisters. Since we all speak fluent hungarian, we did not need the subtitles which was a lot of fun, especially when we caught mistakes in the subtitles. The film brought back sad and scary memories to my mother. Tony Goldwyn did a good job speaking the language. The only criticism I have, is that it was unrealistic for the main characters to speak English as well as they did in such a short period of time. I doubt English was taught in the Hungarian schools back during that time. Also, it was not that easy starting a life in America at first. You had to work very hard and had very little, nothing was handed to you. The movie came across as though they lived comfortably quite easily and early on. Both my parents spent time in immigration camps in NY, which is were they met, they worked hard, scratched and clawed for everything they had. Not easy as it is now. Over all I liked the Film and still recommend it.

Anyone that is not moved after watching this movie might be related to the Grinch, having a heart that is 4 times too small to feel. Of all the crap that spews out of hollywood, we should be glad that they still make movies like this one. The acting was believable, and the story amazing. I can watch this movie over and over and not get sick of it. If you have not seen it, or thought it was a dud, watch it again with new eyes.

The film was entertaining and touching, but what I liked most about it was its faithful recreation of the 1950s. Having grown up in that period, I don't think I've ever seen such a faithful recreation of that era on screen. I kept looking at the screen and sayin, "Oh my God, I remember that."