Capitalism, Otherness and the American Dream
Set in 1921, James Gray’s The Immigrant (2013) can be seen as something of a prologue to the filmmaker’s four previous movies – Little Odessa (1994), The Yards (2000), We Own the Night (2007) and Two Lovers (2008) – in that it goes several generations back to around the time when those stories of immigrant families might have originated.
Polish sisters Ewa (Marion Cotillard) and Magda (Angela Sarafyan) arrive in the United States, escaping from their country’s war-induced misery. At Ellis Island, Magda is diagnosed with tuberculosis and put in quarantine. Ewa does not pass the control point, either: she is informed by an officer that she’s been labelled ‘a woman of low morals’ due to an incident that occurred aboard the ship, and that her family’s listed address in the United States is invalid.
While she queues in the expulsion line, Ewa meets Bruno (Joaquin Phoenix), who introduces himself as an agent of the ‘Travelers Aid Society’. Bruno promises to help Ewa enter the country and offers her a place to stay. Soon, it becomes clear that Bruno is a pimp who provides protection (and the hard labour of sex work) to a group of women who also act in his musical show in a small Manhattan theatre. Despite her initial resistance, Ewa ends up working for Bruno, since this is the only way she can make enough money to pay for her sister’s medical treatment and, hopefully, eventual release.
When Ewa finally visits her family, Uncle Wojtek (Ilia Volok) rejects her because he fears for his family’s reputation. She is sent back to Ellis Island, where she meets Orlando (Jeremy Renner), who is performing a magic show
