[web note: I think the guy is getting Rosemary Harris and Jennifer Ehle mixed up, although they do play the same character. Jennifer is Valerie when she is young, Rosemary Harris is the aged character.]
The film spans the first part of the 20th Century, covering two World Wars and through tumultuous times during the rise and fall of fascism and the communist party in Eastern Europe.
The film begins at the turn of the nineteenth century in Hungary. The Sonnensheins, a wealthy Jewish family who made their fortune by manufacturing a tonic liquor called A Taste of Sunshine from a secret family recipe, are the picture of prosperity and progression. The youngest son, Ignatz (Fiennes) follows his schooling through to become a well-respected judge. He falls in love with his cousin Valeria (Rosemary Harris), a spirited girl who was raised as his sister after her father died in a tragic explosion. They marry and so begins the saga of three generations of Sonnenshein men destined to misery through moral struggle, political ideology and religious conflict.
Fiennes plays three characters throughout the film, each one a son of the first. Unfortunately this is a rather confusing tactic. As well, each of Fiennes' characters comes across as weak and rigidly one-dimensional. This is a story full of passion, yet it is acted in a manner that is full of angst but void of real passion.
Even when Ivan Sonnenshein comes to grips with the fact that he watched his father Adam die in a concentration camp without being able to act, the pain is glossed over without taking the time to fully recognize the inner turmoil that such an observation would surely bring about.
The character of Valeria (Harris) is a saving grace, whose verve and intellect seem the only tangible human dimension in the film. Though it is beautifully shot and has an astounding international cast, it seems that the film aches to be a love story without quite getting there. Instead, the characters intersect but do not really touch each other in a meaningful way.
- J.K
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