AN AMERICAN RHAPSODY
Year: 2001
Cast: Nastassja Kinski, Scarlett Johansson, Tony Goldwyn, Kelly Endresz-Banlaki, agnes Banfalvy, agnes Banfalvy, Zsuzsa Czinkóczi, Balazs Galkó, Zoltan Seress, Mae Whitman, Lisa Jane Persky, Colleen Camp, Larisa Oleynik, eva Szörenyi
Director: eva Gardos
Countries: USA / Hungary
USA: 103 mins
USA Rated: PG-13 for some violent content and thematic material
USA Release Date: 10 August 2001 (Limited Release)
Synopsis
From a new writer/director who lived through the astonishing events depicted in this film, comes a highly personal odyssey of a fierce young woman's bitter exile and hard-won redemption. AN AMERICAN RHAPSODY is indeed an ode to America - but to an America most people today take for granted. It is a story about the true meaning of family, freedom and most of all, the very concept of home.
Amidst the shadows and secrets of Communist Hungary, one family's desperate escape plan goes terribly wrong. By dark of night, the family attempts a daring getaway, sneaking over the heavily armed border, but at an unthinkable price - their infant daughter is mistakenly left behind.
Whisked away and given a new identity, innocent young Suzanne is raised deep in the most remote and rustic Eastern European countryside by a loving man and woman she calls mother and father but who are not related to her. She knows nothing of her real family, who now live an entirely unimaginable life in a sun-drenched California of mini-skirts and modern appliances. Meanwhile, in Hungary, Suzanne grows up without ever seeing a television set, without knowing who Elvis is, without any sense that the world is rapidly changing.
Six years later, Suzanne is at last to be reunited with the family she has never known. They could not be more ready to see their long lost daughter again. But is Suzanne ready for 1960s America? More importantly, is Suzanne's family ready to face the truth? For even as Suzanne dives head first into a teen paradise of hamburgers, rock n' roll and make-out parties, she also finds herself drawn back to the Budapest of unsolved questions, unspoken secrets and stinging betrayals - and into a bold journey to unravel the lingering mystery of her past in order to have a future.