The Old Colossus directed by Roman Polanski [20th Century Fox]
Horror-Suspense
Sandra Bullock plays an Irish woman named Valle Welshkey who sets sail for America in 1857. Upon arrival, she enters the Immigration Station on Ellis Island in New York City, and lines herself up along with the 53 men, women, and children who arrived on the Sentia Marie together. People are startled, and nervous, at the sounds of people screaming and crying, in rooms and hallways, that can't be seen. The air smells dank and musty, the floors are wet with cement, and people hold onto their children and belongings tightly, hoping to get into the land of the free, and the brave, as soon as possible.
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As she walks past the partition, a woman, played by Kate Winslet, asks her for her name, number, and residence, and Valle is only able to utter her name before she is taken away by the arm, and into an Officer's "Hair Inspection Room". The "officer", played by Jude Law, tells her that she can't leave the station until they do a ["routine examination"].
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She quietly sneaks out of the quarter, and overhears a woman screaming in Old English that all of the women who don't have "cheapirannei" are sent to an infirmary, and are never heard of again. Misunderstanding what the woman is saying, and thinking she can't get into America without someone by her side, Valle decides to stand closely with a family of three: a man, his wife, and their daughter. The mother is dragged away by her hair, the man is shot in the head for swearing to murder anyone who touches his family, and Valle is now standing in fear, holding the hand of a little girl from England. Valle makes the decision to pass her off as her own daughter so that she can safely get through without getting hurt. Leiseiy (pronounced lee-see) is scared and confused that her father is dead, her mother has vanished, and this strange woman who seems to be losing her deductive reasoning, is holding her hand, and dragging her along wherever she goes.
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Valle repeatedly tells Leiseiy to stop crying in a language that she doesn't understand. Suddenly Leiseiy is taken away from Valle, and while pretending to fear that her daughter is going to die, watches her only chance of getting through the station walk out the door in the arms of police officers. An American woman, played by Angelina Jolie, tells Valle that she suspects that people crossing the ocean aren't of good nature, while women and men are being carried out in beds, down hallways, with bandages wrapped around their heads, soaked in blood.
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Noticing a French debutante kiss her husband as she greets him at the door, Valle starts to impersonate a French woman as best she can in hopes that people mistaken her for someone who has ended up somewhere she doesn't belong. And now, you have an Irish native woman, pretending to be a French speaking denizen, looking for an English daughter that isn't hers, being lead from room to room by American people she can't understand, watched by terrified immigrants she isn't friendly with - all the while just trying to give her number and residence to someone who will give her American citizenship.
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It isn't until she is brought into the 3rd examination room, where she witnesses a live lobotomy being performed on a 37 year old woman, that she realizes that the building she is in isn't an immigration center, but a psychiatric ward for the criminally insane. She pleads with the people working at the hospital to let her go, let her be free, let her live and be alive...and all they keep doing is telling her that she isn't allowed to leave.
The "Old Colossus" story is intercut / spliced with a modern (2008) story of a family being deported back to Mexico, known as the "Enigma" story - credited to Sandy B., and her agent.
Based on a True Story
