Joaquin Phoenix, Marion Cotillard and Jeremy Renner, under the guidance of James Gray, is pretty much all the reason you need to see the forthcoming “The Immigrant.” But that it’s an accomplished film too, one that finds Gray stretching the boundaries of his personal style of filmmaking, is an equally exciting prospect.
Inspired by the journey of Gray’s grandparents journey to America, and the role of Ellis Island as the processing point for the thousands upon thousands of immigrants who came to America to chase a dream, the film chronicles the tale of Ewa (Cotillard), a Polish woman who is ensnared by a scheming pimp (Phoenix) into a life of prostitution. But salvation for Ewa may arrive in the form of a magician (Renner) who wants to give her a better life. “I was trying to do something that approached a fable instead of a kind of film noir,” Gray recently told us. “The other films [‘The Yards,’ ‘We Own The Night‘] for all of their trappings are kind of noirs. I guess ‘Two Lovers’ was the first step outside the noir range, but this I wanted to be like a beautiful little jewel, I didn’t want it to be so obsessed with the darkness.”
The result is a picture we called out of Cannes “contained, restrained, thoughtful filmmaking that satisfies on nearly every level,” and one to mark on your calendar for next spring. Meanwhile, France is getting “The Immigrant” on November 27th and today a Joaquin Phoenix character poster has dropped following one-sheets for Renner and Cotillard, with a final poster bringing them all together. Check it out below. [CanalPlus/The Life Of A Renner Addict]
To be honest, if The Immigrant was directed by Terrence Malick, Michael Haneke, Lars von Trier or other overrated and overhyped director who always makes boring movies but the critics calls them "master pieces", and especially if it was speaking in french, I'm sure this movie would have better reviews! but is directed by James Gray: an underrated and practically unknown director, so the critics called it "too slow", "too long" and things like that. Interesting fact!
Saw (most of) this film earlier this week at NYFF. I thought the film quite muddy and unbearable at a certain point. Beautiful to look, good premise, great production design but the script and direction had me frustrated. I left (at the 1:20 mark?) so I'll be interested to read the review here and others whom I respect. See what I was misisng.