| Adoption can present significant psychological problems to the adoptee if handled incorrectly. In An American Rhapsody, the problems are explored in more depth than any previous film. The location for much of the film is Hungary, where Suzanne (later played as a teenager by Scarlett Johansson) is born to affluent parents as Communist rule descends in Budapest. Her parents, Margit and Peter (played by Nastassja Kinsky and Tony Goldwyn), escape to Vienna in 1955 and from there to Tarzana in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. However, a separate escape is organized for Suzanne, only a baby, by her grandmother. (Babies were not allowed by the organizer of the first escape for security reasons.) When the woman who is to hustle Suzanne across the border reveals that she will drug the baby so that sudden crying will not alert authorities, the grandmother decides to abort the escape, fearing that the baby will be ditched at the first sign of trouble. Instead, the grandmother arranges for some friends in the countryside to take care of Suzanne until she can later join her parents, but the adoptive parents know little about the circumstances. Next, the grandmother is imprisoned while her property is confiscated. However, the adoptive couple, Maria and Jeno (played by Mae Whitman and Balázs Galkó) do not tell Suzanne about her birthparents. Six years later, after the grandmother gets out of prison, she arranges for Suzanne (played at that age by Kelly Endresz Banlaki) to join her birthparents. However, she decides not to tell the adoptive couple about her plans, and the child is put on an airplane bound for a strange country to stay with a couple and their daughter. Inevitably, Suzanne does not at first believe that the strangers are her birthparents, and she is homesick for the couple in Hungary who acted as her parents for the earliest years of her life, so she runs away to a park. When her birthfather Peter finds her, they make a promise: She can return to Hungary when she is older, but meanwhile she should try to love those who say that they are her birthparents. However, Suzanne’s birthmother Margit treats Suzanne as if she were in Hungary, forbidding her to go out with boys at night. Ultimately, Suzanne is locked in her room, and bars are placed on the windows of her room. Suzanne then finds a shotgun in her closet and tries to shoot her way out. Thereafter, she reminds Peter of the earlier bargain, and she is put on a plane for Budapest at the age of 15. After she arrives, she realizes that she is too Americanized to resume a life with her adoptive parents. Moreover, her grandmother explains the circumstances under which her birthparents escaped and how her grandfather earlier died trying to protect her birthmother from rape. Suzanne then decides that her home is really in America, so she returns, and her birthmother treats her with more wisdom. Based on a true story experienced by the director, Éva Gardos, An American Rhapsody is dedicated to her birthparents. MH |