(Rated R, 180 mins)
Academy Award winner Istvan Szabo and acclaimed playwright Israel Horovitz bring us this epic of the Sonnenschein (Sunshine) families rise and fall, loves, losses and tragic betrayals during the war and the Holocaust over three generations. Ralph Fiennes gives a tour-de-force performance as the neurotic patriarch of each generation playing grandfather, father and son during two world wars. William Hurt does a startling good job as an Auschwitz survivor turned Nazi-hunter. While sometimes a little too melodramatic, the epic has a great deal of ambition and passion and guaranteed Academy nods for Fiennes. But, it’s Tony Award Winner Jennfer Ehle as free thinking Valere Sonnenschein, that should grab the gold Oscar as well.
