Themes: Haunted By the Past, Immigrant Life, Double Life
Main Cast: Ron Silver, Anjelica Huston, Lena Olin, Margaret Sophie Stein, Alan King
Release Year: 1989
Country: US
Run Time: 120 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Ron Silver stars as Herman, a Holocaust survivor who believes that his wife Tamara (Anjelica Huston) perished in the concentration camps. He marries fellow immigrant Yadwiga (Margaret Sophie Stein), whose family sheltered him from the Nazis, and resettles in the Coney Island area of New York. Not all that devoted to Yadwiga, Herman begins an affair with Masha (Lena Olin), who becomes pregnant by him. Reasoning that, since Yadwiga is a gentile, his marriage is not legal in the eyes of his religion, Herman marries Masha as well. The triangle metamorphoses into a quadrangle when Tamara, who was not killed after all, reappears. Olin and Huston were both nominated for Best Supporting Actress Academy Awards. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Though writer-director Paul Mazursky attempted to remake a Jean Renoir film with Down and Out in Beverly Hills, his Enemies: A Love Story actually comes closer to capturing Renoir's brand of resonant, humanistic farce. Based on Isaac Bashevis Singer's novel, Enemies is a rich, bittersweet blend of cultural and personal observations held together by a career-best performance by Ron Silver as a man trying to juggle three wives. No less important are the skilled actresses who portray the women in his life, Anjelica Huston, Lena Olin and Margaret Sophie Stein; Huston and Olin would be nominated for Academy Awards. Enemies: A Love Story may ultimately be Mazursky's most lasting contribution to cinema -- high praise for the director who gave us Blume in Love and An Unmarried Woman. ~ Brendon Hanley, All Movie Guide
Judith Malina - Masha's Mother; Paul Mazursky - Leon Tortshiner; Rita Karin - Mrs. Schreier; Phil Leeds - Pesheles; Elya Baskin - Yasha Kotik; Marie-Adele Lemieux - Baby Masha; Tyrone Benskin - Cabbie; Harvey Berger - Party Goer; I.J. Dollinger - Reb Nissen Yaroslaver; Norris Domingue - Party Goer; Kevin Fenlon - Desk Clerk; Arthur Grosser - Doctor; Harry Hill - Party Goer; Nathaniel Katzman - Wedding Cantor; Burney Lieberman - Yom Kippur Cantor; Howard Ryshpan - Onlooker; Zypora Spaisman - Sheva Haddas; Joe Viviani - Newsstand Vendor; Mark Robinson - Snowcone Vendor; James Rae - Nazi; Joe Cazalet - Nazi; Shimon Aviel - Windbag; Rummy Bishop - Waiter at Dairy Restaurant; Henry Bronchtein - Benny; Robin Bronfman - Catskill Woman; Tommy Canary - Cotton Candy Man; Terry Clark - Beach Acrobat; Arthur Corber - Party Goer; Brian Dooley - Man on Ladder; Michael Dunetz - Customer; Gayle Garfinkle - Mrs. Lembeck; Shelley Goldstein - Mrs. Regal; Doris Gramovot - Yadwiga's Neighbor; Jacob Greenbaum - Rabbi at Catskills; Manal Hassib - Hooker; Ilana Linden - Party Goer; Shirley Merovitz - Catskill Woman; Vera Miller - Masha's Neighbor; Mick Muldoon - Doorman; Libby Owen - Cashier; Bobby Pierson - Rhumba Instructor; Wally Roberts - Barker; Edward Sebic - Fitness Instructor; Rhona Shekter - Rabbi's Wife; Sam Sperber - Violinist
Credit
Steven Jordan - Art Director, Paul Mazursky - Co-producer, Pato Guzman - Co-producer, Irby Smith - Co-producer, Albert Wolsky - Costume Designer, Paul Mazursky - Director, Stuart H. Pappe - Editor, James G. Robinson - Executive Producer, Joe Roth - Executive Producer, Maurice Jarre - Composer (Music Score), David Forrest - Makeup, Pato Guzman - Production Designer, Fred Murphy - Cinematographer, Jacques Godbout - Special Effects, Steve Maslow - Sound/Sound Designer, Paul Mazursky - Screenwriter, Andrew Bergman - Screenwriter, Roger Simon - Screenwriter, Kevin Bartnof - Foley Artist, Isaac Bashevis Singer - Book Author
Set in New York City in 1949, the story follows Holocaust survivor Herman Broder. Throughout the war he survived hidden in a hayloft, taken care of by his gentilePolish servant, Yadwiga, whom he later takes as his wife in America. Meanwhile, he has a passionate affair with another Holocaust survivor, Masha. To Yadwiga, he poses as a traveling book-salesman despite the fact he is a ghost writer for a corrupt rabbi. He wanders about New York with a constant paranoia and perpetual desperation, made more complicated when his first wife from Poland, Tamara, who was thought to have been killed in the Holocaust along with their two children, comes to New York.
