The Immigrant

The Immigrant is a 2013 American drama film directed by James Gray, starring Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix, and Jeremy Renner. It had its world premiere at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival where it competed for the Palme d'Or. The film received generally positive reviews from critics. Cotillard's performance won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress, the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, and the Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress. Plot summary In 1921, Polish Catholic sisters Ewa (Marion Cotillard) and Magda (Angela Sarafyan) arrive at Ellis Island, New York City as immigrants looking for a better life after escaping their ravaged home in post–Great War Poland. Magda is quarantined because of her lung disease. Ewa is almost deported, but Bruno (Joaquin Phoenix), who is Jewish and claims to be from the Travelers' Aid Society, notices her and her fluency in English, bribes an officer to let her go, and takes her to his house. Knowing Ewa has to make money to get Magda released, Bruno lets her dance at the Bandits' Roost theater and prostitutes her. Bruno also becomes interested in her romantically. Ewa looks for her expatriate relatives living in New York, but her uncle by marriage turns her in to the authorities; he says he had heard she had got in trouble for engaging in illicit behavior on the ship from Europe, and he wishes to distance himself from sheltering a prostitute. Policemen take her back to Ellis Island, and once again she is slated for deportation. While at Ellis Island Ewa watches a performance by Emil (Bruno's cousin, making a living as a performing illusionist called Orlando; played by Jeremy Renner); after his performance he hands her a white rose. The next morning Bruno manages to get her released.