The Immigrant Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

The Immigrant Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman March 23, 2015

The Immigrant is built on simplicity and needs to thrive on underlying complexity. The question for Writer/Director James Gray (The Yards), then, is how dedicated the film is to seeing the latter come to fruition and stabilize as the film's centerpiece rather than see it lean more heavily on the former and allow style and a superficial ease to absorb the more complicated substance. Unfortunately, the film never fully gets off the ground, playing around with that inward complexity but more often than not working with a certain tonal ease whereby the movie's simple and sweeping dramatic arcs and its intoxicating period visuals overwhelm dramatic nuance and keep the movie from finding a truly profound spirit or depth. That's not to say that it cannot be a rewarding experience, but that is to say that The Immigrant isn't the movie it should have been, not the defining hallmark masterpiece of its time that it so clearly and desperately wishes to be.

Arrival.

Ewa Cybulska (Marion Cotillard) and her sickly sister Magda (Angela Sarafyan) arrive on Ellis Island via Poland. Magda is taken away to remain in a six-month quarantine and Ewa is on a fast-track for deportation; authorities claim that the address where her relatives supposedly live isn't valid. She's saved the trip back when Bruno Weiss (Joaquin Phoenix) spots her and takes her into his home. When he learns that she's stealing, he puts her to work at a topless show he operates and surrenders her to prostitution, even as he's growing fond of her. Complications place her back in line for deportation, but she again catches the eye of a man, this one a magician by the name of Emil (Jeremy Renner), who is also Bruno's cousin. Soon, Ewa finds herself at the center of conflict between the men vying for her attention.

Part of what holds the film back is its unimaginative and stereotype-riddled basic arc. Certainly the film appears to strive to move beyond that or, at least, use it to construct some deeper and more profound exposition and commentary on both the historical truths of the time and also immigration in a broader context. But the film plays like a dramatization of a history text where the main character experiences all of the Ellis Island highlights: she's separated from her sickly sister, she's taken in by someone with more nefarious motives, suffers certain stigmas pertaining to both her status as an immigrant and unwilling participation in less-than-wholesome activities, connection and separation from relatives, and gains hope in the form of a man who wants to sweep her off her feet but who runs into the roadblocks of jealousy along the way. In essence, she's a classic pawn on a larger board, and the film maneuvers the pieces with textbook precision but often without much of a soul to show for it.

Where the film lacks is in its deeper examination of Ewa's emotional journey. Even as the film builds towards it, it's never feels fully realized, not with the sort of emotional resonance and depth the story demands, and certainly not the sort a picture of this scope and ambition requires. The Immigrant often tries, but doesn't often succeed, at peering past the broader veneer of her life in America or how her new physical existence and her reshaping emotional well-being compare and contrast as she's tossed through the ringer of 1920s immigrant life. The movie feels overly manufactured from a dramatic perspective and the meatier bits seem either too few and far between or simply devoured by surrounding bits and pieces of superficialities that come to define the movie more so than its more interesting lifeblood of inward character evolution.

Fortunately, the performances push the movie to the boundaries of where it should be. Marion Cotillard efforts to find a depth of character even where the script seems to shortchange her more intimate emotional journey in favor of operatic superficialities. She melts into the part with a grace and believability that soaks into every scene and breathes a tangibly exciting and enveloping lifeblood into the film, both at its richest moments and most disappointingly shallow bits alike. Her supporting cast is strong, too, but outside of her performance the film's best asset comes in its authentic period feel that's not simply a result of good costuming and location filmmaking but a gentle grace behind the camera and an absorbing old-time sepia overlay that, even as it's borderline too aggressive, truly allows the audience to feel absorbed into the movie's time and place and experience, not simply see, the world as it was.

The Immigrant Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Immigrant arrives on Blu-ray with a pleasing film-quality 1080p transfer. Anchor Bay's image retains a healthy and consistent grain structure, but don't expect too much from the disc in terms of flashy details. The image features a tight, well-defined collection of textures but leaves razor sharpness behind in favor of a softer period appearance. As a result, faces lack nitty-gritty complexity but general clothing lines and period surfaces are nicely detailed on the macro level. Colors are muted to the point that even the brightest reds are fairly flat. The image is defined by its heavy sepia appearance that leaves the movie favoring only shades of bronze, yellow, and flat earthy tones. Flesh tones share this same push. Black levels are a bit inconsistent, appearing pale here and tight and deep there. Light banding intrudes into a couple of shots but the picture is otherwise clean. While not a classic showstopper, videophiles should be more than satisfied with a transfer that's faithful to the source.

The Immigrant Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Immigrant's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack isn't designed with sonic spectacle in mind. Listeners can expect a more subtle, but no less impressive, experience. Music is generally light and airy, featuring a welcoming front end space, a well-appointed surround support, and just the right bit of added weight at the bottom. The track frequently springs to life with all variety of ambient support, whether the din at Ellis Island's arrival area, minor street side elements, rolling thunder, or seagulls and gentle breezes with some scattered gusty winds floating through the listening area. A few crowd moments are nicely defined, whether scattered applause or catcalls. Dialogue is firmly fixed in the center and flows with natural clarity.

The Immigrant Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Immigrant contains a commentary, a short featurette, and a trailer.

• Audio Commentary: Co-Writer/Director James Gray offers an intelligent and well-spoken discussion of the film's structure, technical secrets, digital effects, the strive for visual authenticity, inspirations, editing, sound design, characters and performances, and much more. The track nicely supports the film and sometimes builds it better than the movie proper.
• The Visual Inspiration of The Immigrant (1080p, 2:54): The filmmakers discuss real period photographs and paintings that inspired the film's visual appearance.
• The Immigrant Theatrical Trailer (1080p, 2:28).

The Immigrant Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Immigrant could have been a special movie, and it's often right there on the edge. It's beautifully crafted and very well acted but it too often rings shallow rather than overflows with depth and legitimate character journey. The movie's plot feels yanked straight out of a history text paragraph or two on Ellis Island immigration that strives to be more but never quite achieves a fuller, richer sense of purpose. Still, it's a worthwhile endeavor if only to become absorbed in the superficial beauty the film has to offer and to consider both what is (a movie on the cusp of greatness) and what could have been (a masterpiece). Anchor Bay's Blu-ray release of The Immigrant features excellent video and audio. Supplements include a commentary and a short featurette. Recommended.