Uma Rapsódia Americana

I lived for five years in Budapest, from 1990-95, and I married a Hungarian woman, so I have a natural interest in Hungarian-themed films. I enjoyed this thoroughly. True, the ending was a bit abrupt and sappy, but I thought it was a nicely made film all in all. Well acted, especially by Scarlett Johansson and Kelly Endresz-Banlaki, who both played the central character of Suzanne/Zsuzsana at ages 15 and 6 respectively.

Natashia Kinski played well, too, and has aged gracefully, playing a woman in her into her late 30s or early 40s I suppose. I was particularly impressed by her, Johansson's and Tony Goldwyn's apparent mastery of Hungarian, no easy language, I can assure you. Much of the film is set in Hungary with Hungarian subtitles (and alternately in America in English). I speak it only moderately well, so perhaps a real Hungarian would criticize the accent, but to me to whole blending of cultures and settings was surprisingly authentic and compelling. It really captured the time and places for me.

We in the United States do not realize how spoiled we are with material things. I am 70 yrs old and remember the lst 10 years of my life, raised by poor farmer grandparents in the depression, having nothing.

Kids do not want to hear nor believe how spoiled they are. They want every new electronic gadget that comes unto the market whether they can afford it or not.They can't afford to fix their car, pay their bills, but they must buy a cell phone, a DVD, cable TV, go to the latest movie at the theater, go out to eat etc

This is a sad movie, but a great one. It shows the comparison between life in Hungary in the mid part of the 20th century compared to the same couple getting to the United States. I won't go into the plot. The little 5 yr old actress who starred in this movie was sensational.

We do not appreciate what we have in the U.S. either. We do not realize how material gadgets do not bring the happiness we thought they would. Please rent this movie...

Being the daughter of parents which also fled to American during the Cold War, this movie touched my heart. I watched it with my mother and two sisters. Since we all speak fluent hungarian, we did not need the subtitles which was a lot of fun, especially when we caught mistakes in the subtitles. The film brought back sad and scary memories to my mother. Tony Goldwyn did a good job speaking the language. The only criticism I have, is that it was unrealistic for the main characters to speak English as well as they did in such a short period of time. I doubt English was taught in the Hungarian schools back during that time. Also, it was not that easy starting a life in America at first. You had to work very hard and had very little, nothing was handed to you. The movie came across as though they lived comfortably quite easily and early on. Both my parents spent time in immigration camps in NY, which is were they met, they worked hard, scratched and clawed for everything they had. Not easy as it is now. Over all I liked the Film and still recommend it.

Moving take of family disconnection and loss as a result of war and politics. Although Scarlett Johanssen has a very strong performance as Zsuzane I feel the younger version played by Kelly Endresz-Banlaki was the standout performance. Conveying with few words the stories message and feeling of loss and confused definition of home. Well worth watching.

The film was entertaining and touching, but what I liked most about it was its faithful recreation of the 1950s. Having grown up in that period, I don't think I've ever seen such a faithful recreation of that era on screen. I kept looking at the screen and sayin, "Oh my God, I remember that."