How did I get here? What happened to me that this is what my life has become? How do I find my way and some hope leading toward a bright future?
For many Europeans at the turn of the 20th Century, the answers to those questions lied across the Atlantic Ocean on the shores of America. And American films, even those period pieces that have explored the hardship of immigration, are seduced by the allure of The American Dream.
Director James Gray uses this backdrop to explore those questions on universal terms. In “The Immigrant,” coming to America means being stuck in a state of purgatory, being without hope or happiness and always fighting for survival. It’s a film about being lost, and not only in America.
The film starts as Ewa (Marion Cotillard) and her sister Magda are arriving at Ellis Island from Poland. Magda is immediately swept out of line to the infirmary for treating tuberculosis, and Ewa is about to be deported after being accused of being a “woman of low morals” while on board the ship.
We see none of her time back home or on the ship, and what exactly a “woman of low morals” means is not readily explained. But here Ewa is, stuck in Ellis Island about to be deported without her sister and wondering how she wound up in this mess in the first place. Immigrant or not, this feeling is not unique to Ewa.
She’s pulled out of line and helped out by Bruno Weiss (Joaquin Phoenix) after he bribes the guards. He offers her a place to stay, points her toward a bathhouse and says with some time and money he can get Magda out of Ellis Island. But his line of work is as a burlesque show manager who gets his girls to prostitute themselves on the side.
His seedy job aside, what’s so strange and unsettling both to Ewa and to us is that Bruno is helpful but not compassionate and cold but not rude. On stage he’s a snakelike showman with a quick turn of phrase but reserved presentation, and the fact that he maintains his own moral code makes him seem slightly mystifying and dangerous.
Begrudgingly, Ewa turns into a faithful whore and does everything she needs to earn enough money for her sister. But she outright hates Bruno and what she’s become, and she very simply states her only real desire is to be happy.
Is this so much to ask? Gray pulls a delicate trick by loading “The Immigrant” with melodrama but avoiding it at the expense of simply pitying Ewa. He wonders aloud why anyone would bother to live and work like this when all the while it’s a miserable, living hell. We’re told this is the life we need to lead, and in Ewa’s case that America is the place she needs to be, and what does it earn her but heartbreak and pain? Gray even dresses Ewa in the Lady Liberty outfit during the burlesque show; she’s pretty and alluring like the country she belongs to, but what promises or hope does she really hold?
“The Immigrant’s” only glimmer of hope comes in the form the magician Emil (Jeremy Renner) who is instantly love-struck by Ewa. He’s charming and handsome and just smarmy enough around Bruno to be a pest. Emil could be the white knight in Ewa’s life or she could be the false symbol of the American Dream to which Gray is alluding.
Even “The Immigrant’s” look is finely crafted, but muted as to be something of a bleak dream world. The lighting is classically sepia but is hardly bland, and the period costuming is simple but arresting and rich.
Gray even gets a similar note from his performers. Cotillard and Phoenix each have the range to astonish and spit fire, but they never do. Both look somewhat timid without losing their bite. Together they bring the film to a quietly tragic climax and perfect final shot.
“The Immigrant” was released at last year’s Cannes film festival as one of the more polarizing titles in the field. Harvey Weinstein picked it up as an Oscar contender, but became so disappointed with it that he’s dumped it in a few theaters with virtually no advertising. It’s as though the film came from overseas hoping to find a new life in America but got caught in this purgatory. The film’s situation is bleak, and the film itself is modest, but its heart is in the right place.
3 stars
The performances are amazing and really do help move the story along. Much is the case with every one of Gray’s movies. Good review.
Of Gray’s movies, do you have a favorite that you’d recommend first? I saw We Own the Night a long while back. I don’t really recall it but I guess I wasn’t impressed. And with this one, I liked it, but some critics are just swearing by it, saying that Gray is one of the most underappreciated directors today. Iggy’s review over at the AV Club called this an American classic and frankly I thought I was reading too much into it that wasn’t there, but I am curious to check out the rest of his stuff now.