It’s hard not to mildly recommend the film on the basis of the performances.
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For all the real world misery and inhumanity the Holocaust has caused, films (and the novels which inspire them) are in love with the material. Not so much because any particular story knows how to mine the event for all the teary-eyed melodrama it can; no, it is rather due to the short hand it can provide. Less work has to be done inside the confines of the story if it can all be explained in one way. Holocaust survivors. That´s perhaps the most damning aspect of "Autumn Hearts: A New Beginning" in film form: instead of creating three dimensional characters, the adaptation flounders about like a bad television movie from one obvious character scene to another without adding anything of its own.
It is a day of joy for Melanie (Susan Sarandon) when old friends Jakob and Christopher (Max von Sydow, Gabriel Byrne) visit her in Canada. The three were interred at the same internment camp during World War II and have not seen one another in decades. Her husband, David (Christopher Plummer), doesn´t share her enthusiasm out of fear: Melanie has not been able to share her time in Drancy with him. When her friends show up, the three-as well as their son Benjamin and grandson Timmy-are thrown into a whirlwind of emotions over the course of one day, all in the hope of making the group stronger in the end.
Susan Sarandon, Christopher Plummer, Max von Sydow, Gabriel Byrne…I´m not sure there is a movie with a higher average age since "Cocoon." (Roy Dupuis as son Benjamin was born in 1963, thus lowering the average a bit.) Fine actors all and each of them let down by the source material. It´s as if, in each scene, screenwriter Jefferson Lewis and director Paolo Barzman are afraid to confront the deeper implications of the story, opting instead to skim the surface. If the film is going to derive at least some of its emotional impact from the events Melanie, Jakob and Christopher experienced, it might have been a good idea to show at least one of them. Maybe Jakob´s time as a human guinea pig involving electrodes and drugs. Simply listening to brief smatterings of dialogue designed to give us a flavor of the history don´t work since we´re forced to rely on our own imaginations of what it must have been like.
(To be fair, in certain types of films, seeing less is more. Examples include "Alien" and "Jaws." However, in drama, it is imperative for the audience to see, rather than be told, what has transpired in order to build real characters.)
In order to make up for what we don´t see, the screenplay tries to tell us what has happened. Somehow, though, it is less effective at building emotion through the film than it should be. Perhaps it is the combination of the lack of visual backstory and the mysterious way the rest of the film plays out. We get hints and innuendo about the issues plaguing all these people, yet no one ever comes right out and explains for our benefit. Melanie checks into a hospital when she begins to have meltdowns. A meltdown? From what? Her time at Dracy, presumably. Perhaps even David´s dalliances with students while the two were married. Why are Benjamin and Timmy living on the farm with Melanie and David? There is a wife and mother in the equation somewhere; there´s only one mention of her being able to join the others before she is forgotten. It is minor details like this which permeate the film, leaving a series of open questions for us to ponder. Either that, or the screenplay is incredibly sloppy.
This may also be a symptom of poor editing. Several scenes seem to cut away before they have any real chance to get going or reach their logical conclusion. Perhaps footage was cut in the editing room. Maybe this style was a deliberate choice by Barzman and editor Arthur Tarnowski. Either way, the premature cuts leave a jittery, herky jerky feeling to the film.
One of the other more minor problems with "Autumn Hearts" is the lack of logical progression for any of the characters. We´re meant to believe they all come to individual understandings about each other, yet we never get to see how they arrive there. It´s maddening, actually, to go through the film, knowing where we have to end up and find ourselves trying to jump a story bridge without a vehicle. What is said between David and Jakob to have the two form a truce? Why is it David doesn´t confront Melanie over Christopher before the credits roll? Apparently, it only matters that there is one happy family in the end. It´s simply not fair to the audience.
Even with these problems, it´s hard not to at least mildly recommend the film (also known as "Emotional Arithmetic") on the basis of the performances. The actors gamely try to overcome flawed material and, in various sequences, they bring depth to an otherwise shallow affair. Notice how little dialogue takes place in a scene late in the film between David and Jakob. While I did just lament the lack of verbal reasoning to get the audience from point A to point B, something about the scene works, almost allowing Barzman to pull it off. There is a weariness from both actors, almost a grudging understanding of what is going on in their lives. It´s in the way both carry themselves, the way their eyes show the signs of being on the verge of giving up.
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