FILM
TREASURE
★★★
OUT 14 JUNE / CERT TBC / 112 MINS
DIRECTOR Julia von Heinz
CAST Lena Dunham, Stephen Fry, Zbigniew Zamachowski
This is a curious mix: a lightly comedic road-trip exploring generational trauma. Based on Lily Brett’s autobiographical novel Too Many Men, it has idealistic, somewhat self-absorbed writer Ruth (Lena Dunham) locking horns with her garrulous, somewhat insensitive father Edek (Stephen Fry), a Holocaust survivor. In 1991, as they retrace Edek’s traumatic years in Poland, von Heinz grapples with the generational divide as the pair come to terms with what he went through while, yes, learning about each other. It’s painted in broader strokes than the material deserves, but sweetness carries it through. Most effective is the vivid recreation of post-Iron Curtain Poland —a grim, ghostly relic that can’t disguise past horrors.