Review: Sunshine (2000)
Susan Granger
Susan Granger's review of "SUNSHINE" (Paramount Classics)
Hungarian director Istvan Szabos' epic, three-hour saga
chronicles the rise and fall of three tumultuous generations of a
troubled Hungarian Jewish family. Their name is Sonnenschein, which
means sunshine in German; the title also refers to a delicious herbal
tonic that the family brews. Ralph Fiennes plays three roles: the
patriarch, Ignatz Sonnenschein, who marries his cousin and begins the
process of assimilation by changing the family name to Sors; his son,
Adam, who converts to Roman Catholicism, primarily to get into
Budapest's best fencing club, and becomes an Anti-Semitic snob,
slashing his way to Olympics victory; and Adam's son, cynical Ivan
Sors, who joins the Communist secret police after W.W.II. The
sweeping story by Israel Horovitz begins in 1840 and extends through
the fall of Communism, encompassing more than 100 years - like
Bertolucci's "1900" and Visconti's "Leopard." Its theme is how all
governments - Monarchy, Fascism or Communism - are corrupt, and how
the choices we make - for better or worse - determine our future. In
a unique casting twist, Jennifer Ehle plays Valerie, the woman whom
Ignatz loves, and, as she ages, Ms. Ehle's real-life mother, acclaimed
actress Rosemary Harris, continues the same character about whom a
grandson says, "She was the only one of us who had the gift of
breathing freely." Recently, mother and daughter were both Best
Actress Tony-Award competitors; Ms. Ehle won for "The Real Thing." On
the Granger Movie Gauge of to 10, "Sunshine" is a thoughtful,
ambitious, elegant 8 - but, because of its length, it's better suited
as a three-part TV miniseries on an adult-oriented channel that could
accommodate the graphic brutality of one torture scene in a
concentration camp, along with the sexual content and nudity.