Movie Review: The Immigrant (on Netflix and DVD)

I give it 1.5 stars

The Immigrant, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Jeremy Renner, is now streaming on Netflix. You might be tempted to watch it. Save yourself almost two hours and just watch the first six minutes.

The story involves a young Polish woman, Ewa, coming to the United States with her sister in the early 1920s. The sister is detained for being a TB risk. Ewa is initially marked for deportation as a woman suspected of low moral virtue. But she’s “rescued” by an American man who turns out to be a pimp. Ewa becomes a prostitute, hoping to save enough money to free her sister from Ellis Island.

Joaquin Phoenix is great. He does crazed pimp oddly well. But overall the movie offers little for the immprof after the first six minutes. (Frankly, it offers little for any movie watcher immprof or not. It’s just not a great movie).

As for those few nuggets, check out 1:04-3:13, which shows the sister being screened and taken away for TB treatment and 3:63-5:57, which shows Ewa’s initial screening.

The biggest plus to clicking on and watching that intro materials is that Neflix will then make a series of recommendations for you of other immigrant movies. Score.

-KitJ