Solomon and Gaenor

In 1911 Wales, the son of a Jewish pawnbroker (Ioan Gruffudd) meets a local girl (Nia Roberts), keeping his religion secret as they become more and more involved. Writer/director Paul Morrison mixes equal parts Romeo and Juliet and How Green Was My Valley with just a dash of Fiddler on the Roof—spicing up an old-fashioned tearjerking tragedy with presentiments of the Holocaust and a contemporary plea for tolerance. But tragedy comes from a great fall, and this story is hopeless from the start. Even when the young lovers are romping in the hay, there’s a dreary pall to the film; all they fall from is misery. Morrison writes doom on every frame until the characters never have a chance, so it’s no surprise, much less a shock, when they come to an unhappy end.