TREASURE
(director/writer: Julia von Heinz; screenwriters: novel “Too Many Men” by Lily Brett, John Quester; cinematographer: Daniella Knapp; editor: Sandie Bompar; music: Mary Komasa, Antoni Lazarkiewicz; cast: Lena Dunham (Ruth), Stephen Fry (Edek Rothwax), Tomasz Wlosok (Tadeusz), Zbigniew Zamachowski (Stefan), Iwona Bielska (Zofia), Maria Mamona (Karolina), Wenanty Nosul (Antoni), Klara Bielawka (Irene); Runtime: 112; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Julia von Heinz, Fabian Gasmia, Lena Dunham; Bleecker Street; 2024-Germany/France-in English and Polish, with English subtitles)
“An earnest but disappointing Holocaust drama on healing.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
An earnest but disappointing Holocaust drama on healing by German filmmaker Julia von Heinz (“And Tomorrow The Entire World”/”Nothing Else Matters”). It’s based on the 1999 novel by Lily Brett, “Too Many Men,” and the messy screenplay is by von Heinz and her husband John Quester.
In 1991, in NYC, the divorced Ruth (Lena Dunham, a noted indie film director & actress), an intelligent but neurotic and self-centered journalist, is grieving the recent death of her mother, while her protective and amiable father Edek (Stephen Fry), a Holocaust survivor of Auschwitz, agrees to go on a trip to Poland with her, even if it’s painful, so she can see dad’s homeland and help her connect with her family’s past.
They hire Stefan (Zbigniew Zamachowski) a local Polish driver to take them around the country. When they visit Auschwitz, Edek has a survivor’s guilt trip, while Ruth is angered by the antisemitism still so widespread in Poland.
If the film wasn’t so ponderous, it could have been better served. Also, its efforts to generate an offbeat comedy in a Holocaust film didn’t work.
It played at the Berlin Film Festival.
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REVIEWED ON 6/30/2024 GRADE: C+