Well-intentioned but never entirely engaging chronicle.
Sunshine
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Germany, Austria, Canada · 1999
Rated R · 3h 1m
Director István Szabó
Starring Ralph Fiennes, Rosemary Harris, Rachel Weisz, Jennifer Ehle
Genre Drama, History
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The saga of the Sonnenscheins, a Jewish-Hungarian family with wealth and status in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. With the rise of Nazi Germany, the Sonnenscheins must leave their family name behind if their bloodline is to survive the tumultuous 20th century.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Sunshine's historical reference-heavy narrative walks a fine line between novelistic tragedy and comically overstated melodrama, falling down on the job more than once.
Dallas Observer by Jean Oppenheimer
That this mess should come from the hand of Istvan Szabo, the brilliant Hungarian director of "Mephisto" and "Colonel Redl," is the real shocker.
Chicago Reader by Lisa Alspector
Many of the plot points seem belabored because they're introduced in the voice-over, then ploddingly dramatized, then analyzed by the family over meals.
San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle
From the outside, Sunshine sounds like the most boring film on Earth. In fact, it's glorious.
This movie doesn't make you think you are watching art. It's closer to a high-end TV movie with lots of familiar faces.
Sunshine is a trifle schematic. But it also makes you feel, quite poignantly, the crushing tides of history: heedless, inhuman--and tragic.
Portland Oregonian by Shawn Levy
So filled with riches that it seems a bit unfair to single out Szabo and Fiennes, no matter how outstanding their work.
Washington Post by Stephen Hunter
It's a brilliant, profound movie, but it's almost no fun at all.
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