By EWAN McDONALD
(Herald rating: * * *)
Epic story of one family in Hungary and a century in which one political idea after another promised happiness and brought the opposite.
The family is the Sonnenscheins, whose fortune is founded on Sunshine, a tonic with a secret recipe. Ralph Fiennes plays the
father, son and grandson beginning with Ignatz, a businessman who thinks of standing for parliament.
As the right rises after the war, Fiennes plays Adam, promising fencer. Since the best fencers are in the officers_ club the Jewish Adam converts to Catholicism so he can join them.
His son Ivan (Fiennes again) emerges as a police officer under the new communist regime following the Civil War.
As this sweeping _ perhaps too sweeping _ tale unfolds, each new situation presents the family members with a choice between ethics and expediency.
* DVD features: movie (180 mins); interviews; making-of feature.
