an american rhapsody offers us an example of teen acting gone marvelously right . as a 15-year-old who wants to rediscover her hungarian roots , scarlett johansson portrays the thrill and frustration of being a teenager so perfectly that i don't ever want her to grow up . and her voice , with its cracked rage , only makes her desire to get control in her life sound more convincing . when johansson ( ghost world ) is on screen , an american rhapsody has a riveting passion and dramatic urgency that is found nowhere else in the movie , which is based on director/screenwriter's éva gárdos life . johansson's character , suzanne , is left behind in hungary as an infant when her family stealthily moves to america circa 1950 . six years later , the young suzanne is finally brought to america , where she joins her parents , margit and peter ( nastassja kinski and tony goldwyn ) and her older sister ( mae whitman ) . however , suzanne is torn away from the parents ( zsuzsa czinkóczi and balázs galkó ) of a family friend who nurtured and protected her from government suspicion . suzanne has trouble fitting in with a world of hula-hoops and hamburgers , running away several times . at 15 , she is still fleeing , only this time to smoke cigarettes , make out , and dabble in other forms of teenage rebellion . this doesn't sit well with margit , who soon results to locking suzanne in her bedroom . when suzanne finds a shotgun in her closet and starts blasting away at her locked bedroom door , she decides that a trip to hungary will set things straight . until johansson appears , the proceedings dawdle . gárdos , a longtime film editor , spends too much time setting up the movie's powerful final stretch . a fascinating array of characters gets left in limbo , and a load of potential powerhouse dramatic moments get ignored . margit , who has come from an obviously wealthy upbringing , finds herself working as a waitress and writing letters to anyone who could bring suzanne to america . peter , who dreams of running a publishing house in america , ends up building airplanes . gárdos doesn't show how the couple reacted to such a sudden social shift without their little girl . there had to be nights of terse bedroom conversations , quiet sobbing and reassurances . and what about margit's mother ( ágnes bánfalvy ) , who spends time in prison for protecting her family , including suzanne ? late in the movie , she tells suzanne she endured the time behind bars by thinking of fairy tales to tell her grandchildren . with a more experienced director ( this is gardos' feature film directing debut ) , the possibilities for showing the grandmother's distraction could have been fascinating . the movie works best when johansson is onscreen . scenes involving the six-year-old suzanne ( kelly endresz-banlaki ) are also wonderful . there's not an ounce of stage mother gusto in her performance . and gardos does craft some nice moments in her film where the pursuit of the american dream tears at your roots . a scene when endresz-banlaki calls kinski " lady " as she's tucked in is hard to forget . most of the movie , unfortunately , lacks emotional power . america is a nation of immigrants -- we all know stories of how our families made sacrifices to get here . in a movie about immigrants' pluck and grit , a director can't just focus on a settling story . we've heard that before . he or she must take pains to hit on a human level . gardos sporadically does that in an american rhapsody , but fortunately there's enough evidence here to support she will be more accurate in the future . 
