Treasure, 2024.
Directed by Julia von Heinz.
Starring Lena Dunham, Stephen Fry, Zbigniew Zamachowski, Wenanty Nosul, Tomasz Wlosok, André Hennicke, Iwona Bielska, David Krzysteczko, Oliver Ewy, and Maria Mamona.
SYNOPSIS:
An American journalist Ruth who travels to Poland with her father Edek to visit his childhood places. But Edek, a Holocaust survivor, resists reliving his trauma and sabotages the trip creating unintentionally funny situations.
Centered on a father-daughter (or daughter-father, as one of the characters put it) relationship navigating Holocaust trauma and cultural identity in Poland following Soviet control, co-writer/director Julia von Heinz’s Treasure ends up feeling like two different goals that don’t fit inside the same narrative. Lena Dunham’s Ruth travels to Poland to learn about her roots and family’s past, accompanied by her goofy but internally pained father, Edek (Stephen Fry), with his reasoning for joining her playing into that past trauma and trying to protect her. Their relationship has also become somewhat fractured in the year following the death of Mom.
This means that Edek is stuck somewhere between wanting to be there with his daughter and seemingly wishing he could be anywhere else where he wouldn’t have to face up to what has been left behind from these horrors (all the sights, including the death camps, are shot with care and respect by Daniela Knapp.) His indecisiveness is clear in the opening moments when Ruth chastises him for missing his flight from New York, leaving her alone a few days early. He sums up this inner conflict by quipping, “I’m here, aren’t I?”
There is also much banter between Ruth and Edek, similar to a sitcom, with the latter often coming dangerously close to feeling like solely a vessel for comedy rather than a complex individual. Treasure works best when it’s not leaning into humor but more concerned with Edek opening up about the past, escaping in 1940, and gradually becoming overwhelmed with memories and nostalgia as the two travel from a former factory he owned to his old home and then to what remains of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Meanwhile, Ruth tries to purchase back some objects of sentimental value from the family now living in her father’s home. Edek sees them as trinkets of no real importance, whereas to Ruth, reclaiming her past, especially through materialistic items, is crucial and more meaningful research than her journalistic work interviewing the Rolling Stones. She is humble about her profession, whereas Edek proudly tells everyone that she is also famous by association.
For a while, this dynamic is certainly engaging, but eventually, it feels stretched far too thin, with an unnecessary focus on Ruth’s personal life, coming under playful fire from her father for leaving her husband and not yet having a family. Simply put, there is material smashed in here that feels like it belongs more inside an episode of Girls and doesn’t necessarily flow into what’s unfolding on screen. There are ways to explore this character and generational differences without resorting to the same clichés and beats Lena Dunham has basically made a career out of.
Based on the book by Lily Brett (adapted for the screen by Julia von Heinz and John Quester), Treasure reaches some natural emotional highs but becomes over-encumbered with drama that feels superfluous and forced. Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry play off each other well and generate some moving feelings when the material is right, but they are also trapped inside a classic case of a story trying to do so much that it lets the characters down. The film is more admirable as a Holocaust remembrance piece than the father-daughter relationship drama it’s more focused on.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
