GrimPrecise I'll tell you why so serious

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

MusicChat It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

cheeftanz I LOVE Ralph... LOVE him. But despite the great film quality and generally great acting, I could not stay put...daydreamed half the movie away. BORING.. Cut in half and less focus on religious intolerance then OK. Jews were persecuted, so was everybody else in the long and brutal human history. Got it. Fatigue already. A film about the Jews saving other brutally oppressed people would be better. Go find that story.

vitachiel Intentions are good and every effort is made to make this a worthy film. Unfortunately, the end result is contemptible. Three major flaws are at the root of this: failed continuity, miscasting and upset footage mixing.The film tells the short but eventful history of Hungary shown through the eyes of three generations of the family Sonnenschein/Sors. Major events are squeezed in less than minutes and important characters are studied only superficially. For instance, when father and son Sors end up in a Nazi concentration camp, the only scene that's included is when the camp leaders kill the father in a horrendous manner while helplessly watched by the son (one of the most intense scenes of the movie). Okay, that was the concentration camp, on to the next scene. No time is taken to delve into the psyche of a traumatized concentration camp survivor, no time to watch things unfold, as if in a great hurry. The same is true for most of the important events taking place in the lives of the protagonists.Adding to the confusion is the fact that the father, the son and the grandson are all played by the same actor, Ralph Fiennes. Undistinguishable, I must say. Adding a mustache doesn't help here: Fiennes remains the same aloof, uninspiring character in all three roles. I am certainly not impressed with his acting skills, although it can always be worse, as evidenced by his zero-talented brother Joseph. Still, only the best of the best actors can manage to remain credible in three different roles in one and the same movie.Another facet which irritated and simultaneously bemused me was the incorporation of present-day shots into old footage, antiquing contemporary sequences as though it would ever fit in with the shaky, unreproducible images of days gone by. And then, still imprisoned in this fake imagery, Fiennes holds a speech. How embarrassing

andrewwoolley This is an 'epic' tale of three generations of a Hungarian Jewish family throughout the 20th century.It has a slight 'slap in the face' quality. Nothing is left to the imagination, as at the beginning when, just in case you don't know what an exploding brewery looks like, you get to see one.It's all very titillating; from grand sword fighting duels, sadism in concentration camps, OTT domestic arguments, to looking up Jennifer Ehle's skirt.It was the director's brainchild. Watch the actors interviewed in the 'making of' say how brilliant he is in the most deadpan way, and what a pleasure it was for them to be involved in the execution of his master plan.

Christopher Adam "Sunshine" traces the story of a Hungarian-Jewish family over the course of several generations and provides viewers with a cursory glimpse into the history of Hungary in the twentieth-century. The film does a nice job examining issues of identity, religion, ethnicity and assimilation and a minority group's quest for acceptance by the majority population. All of these are important and complex issues, but unfortunately the film potentially undermines its credibility by indulging in a somewhat kitsch, romantic storyline. "Sunshine" is ultimately a work of fiction, but since it deals with major, dramatic moments in Europe's recent past--such as the upheaval following World War I, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, the Communist take-over and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution--less of a focus on the romantic saga and more attention to the historical events themselves (as experienced by one family) would do justice to the dramatic history of Hungary in the twentieth century.On a positive note, the directors of this film should be applauded for providing English audiences with a synopsis of Central Europe's recent past-- a region which otherwise often features as a mere footnote in North American history textbooks.