I was prepared to be blown away by a film about an era and place which I have known well, personally. My family came from Hungary and lived through most of what was represented on screen in this epic story. So I was hoping that the much decorated director István Szabo would pull one off as he had with MEPHISTO. But too many clichés, perhaps a political influence by contemporary Hungarian correctness, and a plethora of technical problems amid sentimentality doused my enthusiasm for what should have been a great work.

I found it offensive ... rather than titillating ... that the leading women were portrayed, perhaps stereotyped as Hungarian Jewish tarts. Hot sexy scenes don't offend me. But stereotyping womanhood in any society as the fair sex being constantly in heat ... and for the wrong person .... gets boring and pointless. Similarly, I found it absurd that the same actor Ralph Fiennes (don't get me wrong, he was terrific in SCHINDLER'S LIST and THE ENGLISH PATIENT) would play three different people all descended from the central character .... and never show a single grey hair during all those changing decades and generations. And then there was the portrayal that the Nazis were pretty bad but the communists were worse. This gets into tyrrany relativism. They were both not only bad, but often the same people in Hungary assuming two different brutal roles. [Indeed, there are still Hungarians who as young people during World War II transformed themselves from Nazis (Nylas) into Communists (Avos), and later became hard line, devout capitalists]. There is a little of this explored in SUNSINE with William Hurt in some of his scenes with Fiennes.

Perhaps the more interesting of Fiennes' characters was Adam, the Olympic fencing champion. His Hungarian patriotism (I've known quit a few such characters) blinds him to the deadly reality of the Fascist era. And Ivan is a lawyer who, in his effort to persecute war criminals, becomes as blind and robotic as the Nazis themselves. However, the Valeries form the film's deep center (young Valerie played by Jennifer Ehle and old Valerie played by Rosemary Harris). Valerie's illicit courtship and marriage are perhaps the more interesting aspects of the film. The Valerie scenes are touching, sometimes funny, and finally tragic. Yet although the later scenes deal with heavier themes they are less stirring. Overall, the young and old Valeries do a lot better than Fiennes whose triple performances and distant narration are pretty cold.

Technically, there were plenty of problems. Foremost among them were the wide variety of different English accents by the actors all supposed to be Hungarians; except the one Hungarian fimmaker with an authentically accented English (it was his natural accent). Moreover, the visual style of SUNSHINE, overall, is rather dull. Szabo and his cinematographer present an adequate-looking film. But the beginning scenes are always in the morning with soft lighting. The Sonnenschein's courtyard filled with yellow flowers is indeed a beautiful sight. Also, as war takes over their lives, the film becomes appropriately darker: night time scenes and shadowy interiors. But during three hours, the visual dynamics changed too slowly to match the underlying drama of this family's story.

This is not one of those films that I can sit through twice.

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