Treasure (#563)

On Father's Day, I went to a movie with one of my daughters. It was depressing and sad, but we both thought it was worth seeing. This film, inspired by true events, is the story of two New Yorkers, a daughter who is a journalist and her father, a holocaust survivor, who travel to the country of his birth, Poland.  The daughter in TREASURE is trying to learn about the history of her family because her parents never spoke about it.  Her father has a different agenda and counters her plans at every opportunity. He is a kind of hale fellow well met who insists that they engage a car and driver to take them everywhere (she had purchased train tickets for them) and who immediately looks upon the driver as his best friend.  The father and daughter clash at every new phase of their trip. They visit the family apartment, now occupied by a sullen family, who claim there is nothing left from the previous occupants, but her father recognizes his mother's china and other items, and the daughter, Ruth, purchases them for memorabilia and he objects strenuously.  They finally go to Auschwitz, against his wishes, where he was incarcerated and where family members were killed and they are reconciled when he unearths a box he buried, which contains important items.  This is a moving film, well acted with authentic-looking locations.  Only 41% of critics gave this a thumbs up (I can't understand why more of them didn't like it).  The audiences, however, did like it (93%) which proves once again that critics and audiences are often miles apart.