The latest epic by Oscar-winning director István (Mephisto) Szabó is a sprawling, rollicking, intermittently gripping tale centred on the Sonnenschein ("Sunshine") family. They are a not-so-merry band of Hungarian Jews who struggle together through one assimilation-driven name change, two world wars and three brilliant, neurotic father figures... all of whom are played, in three strikingly different variants of the same basic performance, by fellow Oscar-winner Ralph Fiennes. Man, that's some three-hour ride.
Of course, it can get a little wearing, and Fiennes is a big part of that wear and tear. Right from his initial role onward -- as Judge Ignatz Sonnenschein, the first family member to change his unwieldy but poetic given name to the more Hungarian-friendly Sors -- Fiennes is dashing but difficult, the blindly ambitious zealot who brings down each successive generation. He's the unwitting death wish at the heart of his family's successes and downfalls, the embodiment of a curse levelled against them for daring to seize power by abandoning their faith.
As a result, he's also not exactly a real fun fellow to spend 180 solid minutes with, in any of his incarnations. Which is why you'll quickly thank God for the presence of Jennifer Ehle and her real-life mother, Rosemary Harris, who share the role of Ignatz's adopted sister and eventual widow Valerie, the Sonnenscheins' unsinkable matriarch. This is a woman as jam-packed with the indiscriminate love of life as Fiennes' obsessives are unable to appreciate it, especially whenever it touches their cold hearts with political -- or sexual -- enthusiasm.
Constantly juggling these two extremes, Sunshine's historical reference-heavy narrative walks a fine line between novelistic tragedy and comically overstated melodrama, falling down on the job more than once. Still, it has a pleasant surfeit of the two main qualities far too many films lack these days -- ambition and passion. Much like the Sonnenscheins themselves.
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