‘Treasure’ review: Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry warm the heart

Julia von Heinz’s Treasure may take artistic liberties with its source material, but it hits the right beats of a good tragicomedy.

Preoccupied with the Holocaust and its impact on her life, New Yorker Ruth (Lena Dunham) fulfills a lifelong dream to visit Poland and discover more about her family history, but to her Polish immigrant father, Edek (Stephen Fry), it is a nightmare, and he invites himself along to protect his only living family member, his precious daughter. With contradictory agendas, instead of bonding, they butt heads, but gradually Edek infects his daughter with his carpe diem spirit, and her fearlessness gives him the strength to confront the past. If you have a taste for heartwarming tragicomedies determined to strengthen the father-daughter bond and reunite them with the past, then this movie is for you.

Treasure is an adaptation of Australian, child of Holocaust survivors, poet, essayist, and novelist Lily Brett’s novel, Too Many Men, about Ruth Rothwax, a successful Manhattan businesswoman, taking Edek, her Holocaust survivor father, on a trip from Melbourne to Poland to revisit his native country. It also features imaginary conversations between Ruth and the ghost of Auschwitz concentration camp commandant Rudolf Hoss, whom viewers may be more familiar with after The Zone of Interest. Julia von Heinz ditches the SS officer and trades Ruth’s profession, so she becomes a divorced, health-conscious journalist traveling on a budget. Edek no longer immigrated to Australia but to America and also lives in New York.

Ruthie (Edek’s nickname for his daughter) is first seen waiting at Warsaw Chopin Airport for her father’s plane to arrive. The stark contrast between the average reunion between travelers and their loved ones versus Ruthie and Edek sets the stage for an odd couple, father-daughter road trip with the obvious goal that this trip will draw them closer to each other. Ruth and Edek are so deep in their own heads that they fail to understand each other and connect.

Ruth is desperate to learn more about her family’s roots since her parents never discussed their past, but she is also a fish out of water culturally and unable to speak the language. Ruthie’s preoccupation with financial concerns makes her oblivious to Edek’s clear discomfort over the entire premise of the trip since the last time that he was there, Nazis murdered his entire biological family, and Polish people claimed their belongings.

Disguising his trauma with a bon vivant demeanor, Edek does his best to distract his Ruthie out of concern for her safety. He uses his fluency in Polish to appear acclimated, and befriends anyone along the way, including their married cab driver, Stefan (Zbigniew Zamachowski, who appeared in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s films) and a couple of Polish to English interpreters, Zofia (Iwona Bielska) and Karolina (Maria Mamona). This zest for life camouflages a deep distrust for Polish people and his wariness over digging into the past so Ruthie does not become another deceased loved one, which is not an irrational fear after the Kielce Pogrom in July 1946, which is explicitly referenced. 

A vacation into history.

For those unfamiliar, Poland had a rough go in the twentieth century. After the Nazis invaded, post-World War II, the Russians took over, disguised themselves as native Polish people to replace eliminated or imprisoned Polish leaders to solidify the Iron Curtain’s hold over the nation. The Russian occupation put the Polish people on the losing side of the Cold War, which ended in 1989 with the end of the communist party dominating Polish elections and dissolution of the Soviet Union, but led to a severe plummet of the economy, which is how Ruthie and Edek find Poland upon their arrival. 

Julia von Heinz prefers to show rather than tell her audience so there is a lot of rubble in the street, sparse hotel lounges reminiscent of those in The Lure (the only Polish musical that doubles as a horror film), and a generally grey cloud hanging over the atmosphere. The Polish landscape becomes another character as von Heinz’s camera lingers in long shots to capture the country’s mood, which is emptier than most areas. While the Holocaust and World War II explicitly dominate the narrative, von Heinz signals to viewers in subtle ways that Poland is more than that era without hijacking focus from the main characters and the most atrocious historical event of the twentieth century. There is a brief detour to Chopin’s birthplace, which is played for laughs, but the soundtrack features his music to signal Poland’s accomplishments without feeling like a distraction to build national pride. 

During 1991, Polish people were desperate for the American dollar, and there is a tension of how far people will go to get it. While Ruthie and Edek are not prosperous, they are compared to the locals, but pre-World War II, the Rothwax family was prominent and wealthy so the locals fear that the pair will reclaim their property and leave them with nothing, which would be fair considering one family can trace its ill-gotten goods to 1940 despite professing otherwise.

Ruth and Edek endure sleepless nights while attempting to rest in their respective rooms, but they cope in polar opposite ways: Ruthie meditates on the Holocaust and Edek becomes the unofficial mayor of each hotel that they dwell. von Heinz and cowriter John Quester treat their audience as if they are intelligent, choosing not to spell out the unspoken generational fear and trauma that they are trying to overcome in this trip. Vacations are supposed to be fun, and it’s hard to be lighthearted when the last stop is a death camp. There is also a tacit guilt over their comparative good fortune. If circumstances were different, they would be the ones selling second-hand wares in an open marketplace.

Past lives (and items).

While the narrative is a little predictable, the underlying veracity of the story makes the work more powerful despite its flaws. von Heinz’s sustained close ups of objects imbue them with poignant significance as symbols of their murdered loved ones. One object, an item of clothing, transforms Edek into the stately, impressive and statuesque person whom he was destined to be, not the improvisational, roughly kept figure that he presents for most of Treasure. Ruthie’s dogged pursuit and reverence over objects of the past convert him into someone willing to reclaim his past and release a lifetime of unspoken painful memories.

Every interaction with Polish people is fraught with the weight of redemption: will they repent for the past or repeat the mistakes of their ancestors? Though acting opportunistically and missing empathy, there are no one-dimensional villains per se. One family patriarch, Antoni (Wenanty Nosul), is fighting for his impoverished, desperate, three-generation family. Cowriters von Heinz and Quester use the language barrier and differing socioeconomic status to heighten the tension for potential revenge. The Rothwax family are just insensitive tourists to them, and Antoni’s family are the heirs of unrepentant vultures. Ruthie and Edek have the potential to squash them like the bugs in Ruthie’s nightmares, but the resolution is ambiguous regarding how Ruthie and Edek should respond. The legal answer is obvious. It is their property, and Antoni is a thief, but the moral implications are muddier. Intersectionality offers no easy answers.

Strong departures for storied actors.

Dunham plays against type, avoiding her history of gravitating towards train wrecks as she did in her HBO series Girls or her directorial feature debut Tiny Furniture. Ruthie is uptight, responsible, self-deprecating and pinched. While she probably won’t get new fans from this performance, it is nice to see Dunham stretch herself and play a straight person to Fry’s more bombastic, larger-than-life character. She gets one chance to literally scream on a full elevator out of frustration as her fellow riders, who appear to be German, joke and laugh seemingly about a Nazi salute.

Also Dunham would not be Dunham if she did not get a scene with nudity and show her boobs, but that’s arguably a relevant action. She loosens up a bit and indulges in melancholic emotion by lounging in a bath while munching on chocolate instead of self-harming. The trip dislodges a negative relationship with food, and she begins to eat for pleasure instead of behaving like an almond mom.

While Ruthie’s pain is not spelled out, there are hints that she struggles with depression and self-loathing. Several Polish women clad in an array of bright colored, spandex body suits sit in a lobby then later appear on television almost like a silent castigation, especially as her father lingers in their presence. Dunham’s weight has always been a part of the cultural discourse, which is silly and sexist, but germane to the story.

In Western propaganda images from the Cold War era, Eastern European women have always been on the larger side. Ruthie fits that imaginary standard more than the locals, and her build makes her seem more like her father’s daughter. In Treasure, weight and difference from an ideal feminine image are assets, a sign of prosperity and firmness. Karolina reassures, “A beautiful woman must be strong and take up space.” 

The two interpreters (Bielska and Mamona) represent a more realistic and textured depiction of the Polish woman. Their observations of the father and daughter dynamic function as a catalyst to mend the relationship by gently questioning the way that he makes her feel without condemning him. Karolina asks, “Did you tell her how much you loved her as a child?” If there is ever a sidequel spin off called “The Interpreters” with these two ladies smoking and offering hard truths, the presale numbers better hit the roof. They act like the absent mother figures without being maternal or normatively heartwarming. 

It would be interesting to get a Polish viewer’s take on Fry’s accent, but to the average American, he is convincing. It is a departure for Fry as well, and he delivers a lived-in performance that organically shifts through a multitude of complex emotions. As he stops running away from his negative emotions, his outgoing personality transforms from an act into the truth. 

The bottom line.

While Treasure sells a pat idea that genocidal, generational trauma can be healed in a single road trip to the scene of the crime, people do not always watch movies for realism, but as part of aspirational wishful thinking. On a more elemental level, who doesn’t want more images of fathers and daughters bridging the gap in time for Father’s Day weekend? If that fantasy appeals to you, then the unlikely pairing of Dunham and Fry should melt even the coldest of cynical hearts.

Treasure is now playing in theaters. You can watch the trailer here.

Images courtesy of Bleecker Street and FilmNation. You can read more reviews from Sarah G. Vincent here.