The Immigrant

"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.

There is nothing new or surprising in the story: a poor young immigrant girl who is fresh-off-the-boat taken advantage of, and is sexually exploited by another survivor (just one step above in the food chain ladder) in the golden age of immigration in America.

The acting is good, but the script is quite poor and the direction merely goes through the motions of formal correctness without adding depth, or a true reflection, or a new insight on the matter.

The characters lack in complexity and reality; the revealing of social injustice is more a "homework making" of a formal outrage than a truly insightful exploration of human miseries.

It is an average film with minor hits and major misses which, in my opinion, will not make its way through history, even for easy-to-please audiences as the lovers of Hollywood movies.

The Immigrant has all the ingredients to be a blockbuster and an excellent movie: great actors, fantastic production, great atmosphere, historical settings, and a touching story about the harshness of immigration in the USA after the WW1 without sugar-coated BS. Yet, for whatever reason, the movie felt flat most of the time to me, and not touching despite the story being a priori very touching.

Phoenix is always great in whatever he does, and he's the only actor whose character I felt and believed to be real in this film. Marion Cotillard is really sweet but, despite the role being written for her, the dramatic coloratura of the script, speaking in Polish, and shedding the perfect tear, her acting feels flat, as if she had taken a muscular relaxant during the film; unfortunately, I didn't think her acting was coming from the heart and it didn't touch mine. I found Jeremy Renner miscast in his role, he has no chemistry with Cotillard on camera and he was never meant to be a rival of the always powerful Phoenix.

The script has no tempo, unfortunately, so it dragged me alone on a two-hour flat ride. You know, the movie is really sad and emotional, but it rarely moved me, intrigued me, or kept me waiting for what was coming next. The movie felt, depending of the times, clichéd, phony, overly melodramatic, a bit frigid, but mostly unfocused and confused, and that's always the director's fault.

Overall, this is a nice film to watch, but it deflates before it gets fully inflated. There are many things I liked about this film, truly, but nothing I really loved, unfortunately.

What a beautiful story it was, a sad story of that girl Ewa, full of hope arriving in a strange country with the believe that she and her sister will be welcomed by their family! And the desperation and fear when bit by bit her hope and faith gets challenged by the bitterness of "the American dream", the bitterness of being immigrants without money or relatives, connections... Marion is amazing, she acts with her eyes, her face tells it all, she actually doesn't need words... She makes Ewa a very fragile looking "girl" but with an amazing survival-instinct .. Joacquin was charming, frightening, sad, and at the end pitiful..a very dark character, despicable and yet tragic... When Jeremy comes into the story, his character adds a lot of tension with great interaction with Joacquin and Marion; repressed emotions, boyish charm , impulsiveness combined with darkness. He was really really excellent, I loved his performance.. Gray did an awesome job by building up the story the way he did, with very beautiful images, images in those amazing soft yellow ocher colors , that show us a world of those who are "damned " with very rare beacons of light... The end scene, that ending shot , was so amazing, so beautiful ! And I loved the soundtrack.

The opening shot of James Gray's "The Immigrant" is, rather befittingly, the Statue of Liberty, circa 1921. For Lady Liberty, herself of foreign origins, exemplifies the ideals and ambitions millions upon millions of immigrants have sacrificed and labored for in the hopes of one day achieving. The camera then pulls back slowly and the statue disappears into the background, for this is no grand tale of success or prosperity, but of the hardships and struggles associated with the vast majority of immigration experiences.

The title character refers to Ewa Cybulska (Marion Cotillard), a Polish immigrant freshly off the boat at Ellis Island alongside her sister , Magda (Angela Sarafyan). The sisters are hastily separated when Magda is unable to conceal her illness (later discovered to be tuberculosis), and is promptly quarantined. Faced with deportation, Ewa is recruited by Bruno (Joaquin Phoenix), a shady theater promoter, who is able to furnish her with a bed and employment.

Ewa finds her situation anything but ideal, and it is not long before her body becomes her greatest commodity. Feeling exploited by Bruno, she manages to locate her aunt and uncle, earlier immigrants living in the city for some time now. This effort proves futile, and she is once again resigned to operate under Bruno.

Further complications ensue when Emil (Jeremy Renner), a magician and Bruno's cousin, enters the picture and is instantly enraptured by Ewa. Partly seeing it as an infringement of his turf and partly out of envy, Bruno reacts hostilely towards Emil's advances towards Ewa. Ewa, whose justification for her prostitution is a hopeful reunion with her sister, is torn between the two men. Not necessarily out of love, for something so trivial surely has no use in the world of struggles Ewa finds herself in, but she is divided as to whom can properly benefit her, as she has reason to doubt both men's claims.

Showcasing a handsome reproduction of early 1920's New York, Gray's film is a very sympathetic portrait of the burden of immigrant life. As depicted in the film, the processing system dehumanized the migrants, frighteningly close to the same degree as the slave processing in "Goodbye Uncle Tom." If one was lucky enough to make it through customs and into the country, "The Immigrant" pulls no punches in representing the strife of the urban environment at a time where work came cheap and arduous, as was human life.

As one would come to expect by now, Marion Cotillard, who has been nothing less than terrific in various foreign and domestic films in the last couple years, is well cast as Ewa. Able to channel the character's sympathy without falling victim to excessive sentiment, Cotillard's Ewa is a woman who has convinced herself to make the necessary sacrifices, yet cannot help but to bear the guilt. Though Cotillard's Ewa may doubt her methods, her zeal is never up for question. She is absolutely determined to see her sister again from whatever cash she can scrap together, and the end will surely justify the means.

Also notable is Phoenix, who continues his recent career renaissance following 2012's "The Master" and 2013's "Her." Bruno, as played by Phoenix, is undoubtedly taking advantage of Ewa and her situation, yet there is a sense of gentleness and care that Phoenix is able to bring to the character. Under Bruno's wing, Ewa may be compromised, but she is cared for and secure. Bruno never physically abuses her or coerces her into something she isn't prepared for, as her path into prostitution was clearly forged given the situation, whether she came across Bruno or not. Thus Bruno's recruitment was both a blessing and a curse for Ewa. Great credit should go to screenwriters Gray and Ric Menello and actor Phoenix for carving a well-structured and nuanced character out of what could have easily fallen into the ranks of cliché.

As her character states early on, Ewa's only ambition in coming to America is "to be happy," yet she finds her conditions to be anything but. Thus "The Immigrant" is a testament to the trials and tribulations that countless individuals and families have endeavored (and those who continue to do so) at the aspiration of forging a better lives for themselves.