'The Immigrant' A Reivew

The Immigrant is a period melodrama about a young polish woman's immigration to the US in 1921. Ewa(Cotillard) is way laid at Ellis Island when her sister is quarantined for influenza and she is threatened with deportation due to accusations of being a "loose woman". Bruno(Phoenix) theater producer and erstwhile pimp swoops in and saves Ewa and, through manipulation and persuasion, subsumes her into his employ.

Although beautifully filmed conveying the begone era in which it's set the narrative remains inert. The immigrant-pressed-into-prostitution story is cliche and lifeless despite the best efforts of Cotillard who brings all her considerable talents to bare without result. There are tragedies, injustices, magic, theater, brutality but all meaningless, we learn nothing, we go nowhere.

The two supporting males Joaquin Phoenix and Jeremy Renner are both horribly cast and ineptly directed. Renner is committed but simply out of his element, seeming cartoonish as an eyelinered tuxedoed stage magician, he may not be cut out for period he exudes modern. Phoenix puts little to no effort into his shambling, mumbling, half-hearted, vacate performance. He only stirs himself to actually act in the climactic final scene which is, to be far, excellent.

But despite, or maybe because of, the potency of the final scene and the corresponding breathtaking final shot The Immigrant is nothing but disappointment and wasted potential.

Don't See It.