The Last Suit

When young Polish tailor Abraham Bursztein (Miguel Ángel Solá) survived the Holocaust and returned to his hometown of Lodz, he made a promise that, despite his decision to leave for a different life in Argentina, he would eventually come back one day. That was 1945. Seventy years later, the now 88-year-old Bursztein has yet to keep his vow. And suddenly he finds himself in a King Lear situation, dividing up his considerable assets in Buenos Aires among three daughters, which results in his unwilling placement in a retirement home. Abraham decides that now would be a good time to keep that promise to return to Lodz. His determined (if medically unwise) effort to fly to Madrid and reach Poland by train becomes a series of challenges, during which he barely notices when sympathetic strangers try to help. Writer-director Pablo Solarz craftily switches the film’s tone from domestic comedy (with a Shakespearean edge) to a Holocaust memory movie, and Solá shines in a moving performance as a bitter man who lost everyone. Recommended. (T. Keogh)