30 Second Bottom Line: A family escapes from Hungary in the 1950's but their infant daughter is, by unfortunate circumstances, left behind. She lives her first six years as the daughter of a loving, childless older couple in a remote Hungarian countryside. When she is reunited with her family in California she longs for her past and her "parents." At 15 she gets to return to them and to Hungary to uncover who she really is.
Story Line: Margit (Nastassja Kinski) is the beautiful, elegant, wealthy mother of two precious daughters in Budapest. She and her husband Peter (Tony Goldwyn) need to take the children and escape to America for political asylum. They leave everything behind that they own, dress as peasants and travel under cover to the border where they crawl under barbed wire fencing under the cover of night to escape their country. They are able to bring their five-year-old daughter but not the infant Suzanne.
She is to follow the next day with a sleazy smuggler woman who will drug the baby and hide her in a potato sack while crossing the border. Suzanne's loving grandmother cannot release this precious child into the hands of this callous, for-profit, uncaring woman. With the police banging at the door to prosecute this family for their politics, the grandmother sends the baby off to be kept with a family in the countryside. Elegant, noble Grand Mama is handcuffed and spends the next 6 years in prison. Suzanne's parents learn of this in Vienna, but there is no recrossing the border. They have no choice but to leave their child and continue on to America.
Suzanne grows up in a storybook environment, adored by this older childless couple in rural Hungary. Clad in colorful peasant clothing, wearing her babushka, Suzanne's world is full of play and love. She's kept uninformed about her real parents, until the day Grand Mama comes to bring her to Budapest for a few days. Suzanne never returns from this "visit." She's taken straight to the airport and flies directly to Southern California to be reunited with the family she never knew even existed. At six years old her life is completely uprooted--new language, new culture, new sister, new parents.
She aches for her old life, and calls her real mother "lady." Her adjustment to American life is funny and heart breaking. By 15 she is a holy terror, battling constantly with her mother, escaping out her bedroom window to rendezvous with her boyfriend, drink, smoke, and in general, carry on. Her life and soul are tormented. She does not belong with her real family, she doesn't know where she belongs.
Finally her parent agree to allow her to return to Hungary. The trip becomes a journey of discovery of her heritage, her family, herself. The most illuminating experience for Suzanne there is the time she spends with Grand Mama. She learns of the horrors her real mother faced in the 50's and how heroic and noble she truly is.
Tell Me More About It: The heart of this true story is the essential human need to belong--to a family and to a culture. Suzanne does not belong to her real family or to America until she returns to Hungary as a teenager. The emotions of love, abandonment, aching and longing for lost love and lost identity are overflowing and overwhelming in this film. This is the true story of the writer/director Eva Gardos and it rings so true as an intimate, heart-wrenching story. I cried during this film, moved in a deep and powerful way by it. It reminds me of the painful Baby X stories of adopted children being returned to their biological parents, ripped from the loving arms of their adoptive parents. Its reminiscent of children living through an horrific divorce and ultimately not feeling at home with either single parent, craving a return to the safety and predictability of their lost former lives. Both sets of parents adore Suzanne, yet she lives isolated, alone and lost, frustrated by her gnawing need for her true identity.
Scarlett Johansson is superb as the 15 year old Suzanne. The casting of the younger Suzanne, a Hungarian child (Kelly Endresz Banlaki) is magically in sync with an uncanny physical and emotional similarity to her more grown up version. Nastassja Kinski is stunning, elegant, strong and noble as Suzanne's conflicted mother. The transition from a world of genteel elegance in opulent Budapest to Margit's waitressing in a Southern California diner owned by a jerk, is stunning in its impact.
The price for freedom for this family is ripping up their lives. This is the essential American story, often unknown by a family's second generation. This is a masterpiece of a first film. Magnificently filmed and casted, gut-wrenching in the emotional issues it dissects.
DVD