Depending upon how you view these things, The Man Who Cried is either the right story for the wrong cast, or the wrong story for the right cast.

The Man Who Cried is the story of displaced people and outsiders in Europe just before World War II. The tale is told in three separate chapters as it moves from Russia to Paris to the U.S.

The beginning of The Man Who Cried is really engaging, mostly because of a child actor named Claudia Lander-Duke. She is little Fegele, living in a Russian village with her father (Oleg Yankovskiy), who is a cantor. He must leave for America; the child winds up in England after her village is burned to the ground.

The little girl grows up, and is played as a young adult by Christina Ricci. As an 'orphaned' immigrant, Fegele has been re-named Suzie and raised by English foster parents.

Suzie goes to Paris to be a chorus girl. She meets Lola (Cate Blanchett), who is a Russian dancer and she meets Cesar (Johnny Depp) who is a Gypsy. Also roaming around in here is John Turturro as an Italian opera singer.

This is the point where things go right off the rails.

The Man Who Cried concerns separation from family, from culture, from language and what those separations do to people. By the time the Nazis are ready to round up Jews and Gypsies in Paris in 1939, Suzie must once again pick up her life and go, in order to survive. Her journey takes her to America in search of the father she never forgot.

Christina Ricci is a wonderful actress and a luminous beauty and you could pretty much just stare at her in The Man Who Cried and feel as if you'd had your money's worth.

Ditto Johnny Depp, but most everybody else in this film seems to have been directed to overdo it. The Man Who Cried is the sort of film that has Americans adopting various European accents, not always in a convincing fashion.

Sometimes the dialogue is embarrassing. Sometimes the visuals are magnificent. It's an up and down proposition.

The Man Who Cried is written and directed by Sally Potter, whose other films are Orlando and The Tango Lesson. There is something off-puttingly self-conscious about Potter's earlier movies. This one, too.

(This film is rated AA)

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