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Sunshine
Paramount Classics

Sunshine reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 71 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
9.0 out of 10
based on 26 reviews
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How did we calculate this?
based on 7 votes
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MPAA RATING: R for strong sensuality, and for violence, language and nudity

Starring Ralph Fiennes, Rosemary Harris, Rachael Weisz, Jennifer Ehle, Deborah Unger, Molly Parker, James Frain, and David de Keyser

The story of three generations of scions during the tragic and turbulent history of Hungary in the 20th century. Fiennes plays all three leads.


GENRE(S): Drama  
WRITTEN BY: István Szabó (also story)
Israel Horovitz
 
DIRECTED BY: István Szabó  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: May 8, 2001 
Video: May 8, 2001 
Theatrical: June 9, 2000 
RUNNING TIME: 179 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: Austria / Canada / Germany / Hungary 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
From the outside, Sunshine sounds like the most boring film on Earth. In fact, it's glorious.
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100
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
A powerful film.
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91
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
So filled with riches that it seems a bit unfair to single out Szabo and Fiennes, no matter how outstanding their work.
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90
Washington Post Stephen Hunter
It's a brilliant, profound movie, but it's almost no fun at all.
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88
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
An incredibly ambitious film and one of the most highly accomplished of the year.
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83
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
While inevitably oversimplified, is never less than engrossing.
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80
The New York Times Dana Stevens
Leaves you with a sense of quiet, chastened grace.
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80
LA Weekly F. X. Feeney
What makes Sunshine unique, what rewards a first viewing and lives in the mind long thereafter, is that Szabo has attempted to place Judaism and Christianity on a continuum that is both historically truthful and highly personal.
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75
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
This is a movie of substance and thrilling historical sweep, and its three hours allow Szabo to show the family's destiny forming and shifting under pressure.
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75
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
The sunshine in Sunshine comes from women around him (Fiennes).
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75
Miami Herald Marta Barber
For filmgoers not interested in history, Sunshine might be a three-hour investment they may not want to undertake.
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75
USA Today Mike Clark
This movie doesn't make you think you are watching art. It's closer to a high-end TV movie with lots of familiar faces.
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75
New York Post Jonathan Foreman
It is often as powerful as it is elegantly shot. Unfortunately, Szabo tends to tell this rather predictable tale in an obvious yet uneven way.
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75
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
The filmmaking is uninspired and Fiennes inexplicably plays three different characters with exactly the same acting style.
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70
TV Guide Ken Fox
That this handsome, three-hour extravaganza coheres at all is a small miracle; that it actually leaves you wanting more is a major one.
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70
Time Richard Schickel
Sunshine is a trifle schematic. But it also makes you feel, quite poignantly, the crushing tides of history: heedless, inhuman--and tragic.
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70
Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector
Many of the plot points seem belabored because they're introduced in the voice-over, then ploddingly dramatized, then analyzed by the family over meals.
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70
Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
It is a superb period re-creation and boasts a formidable international cast.... It is nevertheless absorbing and illuminating in regard to the eras its spans but is also pretty wearying by the time it starts winding down.
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70
Village Voice Amy Taubin
Despite Sunshine's historical scope and multiplicity of characters, it doesn't shed half as much light on its subject -- identity and anti-Semitism -- as does, for example, Agnieszka Holland's claustrophobic chamber piece "Angry Harvest."
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63
San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris
Szabo doesn't bring the film to its senses until just past the halfway point.
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63
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
The saga might have worked better as a novel, where we could cast the characters with our imaginations, and keep them straight.
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60
Variety Eddie Cockrell
Well-intentioned but never entirely engaging chronicle.
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52
Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard
Eventually succumbs to fatal overlength.
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50
Film.com Gemma Files
Sunshine's historical reference-heavy narrative walks a fine line between novelistic tragedy and comically overstated melodrama, falling down on the job more than once.
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50
Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Ultimately one of those sprawling epics best suited for a rainy day.
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30
Dallas Observer Jean Oppenheimer
That this mess should come from the hand of Istvan Szabo, the brilliant Hungarian director of "Mephisto" and "Colonel Redl," is the real shocker.
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What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Liz d gave it an8:
A tough movie to watch because of the constant barrage of gratuitous ex and violence. Good story though--good acting. Very good cinematography. Many wonderful moments.

Maybe Just Not Hungarian Enough gave it an8:
When the film depicts political events and their effects on individuals, it's gripping. William Hurt is devastatingly convincing as the post-war Nazi hunger who falls victim to the zealous machine of retribution that he helps to build. (He is all the more convincing for his matter-of-fact American accent -- none of the 'mid-Atlantic' neutrality which is supposed to make the characters sound authentically European -- because it serves to remind North American viewers that they are just as prone to the ideological madness that overtook Central Europe.) My problem with the film is that much of the personal drama, especially the ebb and flow of romance, is less convincing. We never really seem to understand why characters fall in and out of love with each other; it's as though there just isn't time, for all the length of the film. What was the first sign that Ignatz's brother is also in love with his cousin/sister-in-law? Seemingly, it just happens. Why does she then leave Ignatz? If he really was so cold and rational, didn't she get an inkling of this before they married? Rachel Weizz's character seems to be in the film just to be another temptress, as though her suddenly appearing to declare her passion for her brother-in-law is supposed to move us all. The whole sub-plot seems to be thrown into the film like a gaudy extra sweater in a stuffed suitcase. One also doesn't understand the youngest son's love interest, except that the director seemed to believe that any decent Hungarian has to have his head turned by a sultry blonde. We know so little of their feelings that we agree when she complains that he only wants to lift her skirt in some wood. Still, there will be many viewers who will disagree with me, and they should find (and find the time to enjoy) this moving and ultimately inspiring film.

Elliott H. gave it a10:
A complex terrific movie. Long movies (3 hours) tend to be something special-especially good or especially bad. This one is especially good. If the movie can capture your interest and attention for 3 hours, it has an advantage shorter movies can't match. As you invest your time, you begin to care for the characters in a way beyond criticism. When I start reacting viscerally to a movie it gets a 10 from me.

Yoon C. gave it a 10:
One of the greatest films ever and one of the finest summations of the cultural/historical events and traumas of Eastern Europe in the 20th Century. The mostly English and American cast work surprisingly well, which is of crucial importance as the excellent performances anchor the dizzying, chaotic, impersonal, and ruthless forces of huge upheavals in the agony, even poetry, of individual lives; history is personalized. Perhaps, it's comparable to Dr. Zhivago in its portrayal of the dignity, even the triumph, of the individual in the vast bloody panorama of history but it goes deeper, is more naked and truthful, and avoids Lean's penchant for glamorization. Fiennes plays three generations of Jewish Hungarians, a feat that is both exhilarating and provocative in questioning to what extent are we free as individuals and to what extent are we prisoners of cultural conditioning.

Istvan L. gave it a 10:
A beautiful movie, which brings back bitter sweet memories of a young girl I had lost a long time ago.

Anne gave it a 10:
It is just brilliant and true to history. The cinematography, set direction, and acting are excellent.

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