Sunshine 1999

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Sunshine ★★ 1999 (R)

Sprawling look at four generations of an assimilated Hungarian-Jewish family covers a lot of time at the expense of cohesiveness and character. Title refers to the health tonic that makes the family fortune and is a pun on the family's original name, Sonnen-schein. Fiennes turns up in three roles as the family prospers in Budapest by changing their name to avoid the anti-Semitic society—eventually converting to Catholicism. It will not protect them, however, from the Nazi holocaust and the turbulent postwar period that leads to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. 180m/C VHS, DVD . CA HU Ralph Fiennes, Rosemary Harris, Rachel Weisz, Jennifer Ehle, Molly Parker, Deborah Kara Unger, James Frain, William Hurt, John Neville, Miriam Margolyes, Mark Strong; D: Istvan Szabo; W: Istvan Szabo, Israel Horovitz; C: Lajos Koltai; M: Maurice Jarre. Genie ‘99: Film.