VOYAGE OF THE HOPEFULLY IS A ROCKY JOURNEY
GOLDEN DOOR |
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| In Theatres: | July 20, 2007 |
| On DVD: | TBA |
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| Reviewed by: | Louis B. |
| Official website: | www.goldendoor.com |
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America has always been a great magnet for the underprivileged, offering as it does dreams of untold riches.
In the case of Italian widower Salvatore Mancuso (Vincenzo Amato) in 1907, America offers money that grows on trees and rivers of milk and honey.
He’s seen it all in postcards and is determined to bring his two sons and aging mother to this land of hope and riches.
Anyone who’s ever been to a movie or read a novel knows Salvatore’s journey from Italy to American will be fraught with pain and hardship.
Filmmaker Emanuele Crialese has created a wonderful hero in Salvatore as he pits the man and his family against one hardship after another.
Just getting to the ship is a trial but once the voyage begins our hearts really go out to him and everyone on that crowed ship.
Even after the ship docks at Ellis Island, the dream is not his for the taking.
Golden Door is a powerful story of the tenacity of the human spirit.
The only true flaw in Crialese’s film is the character of Lucy Reed (Charlotte Gainsbourg) a mysterious English woman who need to convince Salvatore to marry her if she has any hope of being accepted into America.
We never learn enough about Lucy to make the relationship work.
She comes off more like a plot device than a character.
Still the powerful acting from the members of Salvatore’s family especially his mother and youngest mute son keep us riveted.
It’s devastating to think what people will and continue to endure to come to North America.
The real poignancy of Golden Door is that, in 100 years, little has changed for the disadvantaged seeking asylum in either the US or Canada.
