Foreign Movie Review: IDA (2014), D- (For Americans), B (For Guilty Polish People)

By just looking at the ads for this movie I knew the plot and story and almost everything about it.  Holocaust, Jewish child adopted by church, parents killed by the Nazi's and /or Poles, child grows up and finds out that she is Jewish . . . by heritage.  

I took a major risk of 2 hours of my time to see this film.  Very bad investment.  And I knew better.

Seen the story line 4325 times already. Good to help cleanse the guilt of the Polish people.   Got great reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.  

Very, very, very slow, little dialogue, the cinematographer was in charge because all we see is a depressing Polish landscape . . . predicable and boring. Movie needs an anti-depressive prescription.  A nine year old kid could come up with a better script.

Rotten Tomatoes Take on the film:

IDA is a moving and intimate drama about a young novitiate nun in 1960s Poland who, on the verge of taking her vows, discovers a dark family secret dating from the terrible years of the Nazi occupation. 18-year old Anna, a sheltered orphan raised in a convent, is preparing to become a nun when the Mother Superior insists she first visit her sole living relative. Naïve, innocent Anna soon finds herself in the presence of her aunt Wanda, a worldly and cynical Communist Party insider, who shocks her with the declaration that her real name is Ida and her Jewish parents were murdered during the Nazi occupation. This revelation triggers a heart-wrenching journey into the countryside, to the family house and into the secrets of the repressed past, evoking the haunting legacy of the Holocaust and the realities of postwar Communism. In this beautifully directed film, Pawlikowski (the director) returns to his native Poland for the first time in his career to confront some of the more contentious issues in the history of his birthplace. Powerfully written and eloquently shot, IDA is a masterly evocation of a time, a dilemma, and a defining historical moment; IDA is also personal, intimate, and human. The weight of history is everywhere, but the scale falls within the scope of a young woman learning about the secrets of her own past. This intersection of the personal with momentous historic events makes for what is surely one of the most powerful and affecting films of the year.