Writer-director Jeremy Podeswa (Queer as Folk, Six Feet Under) adapts Anne Michaels’ novel of a Holocaust survivor (played by Robbie Kay as a boy and Stephen Dillane as an adult) ferried from Poland to Greece and then to Canada, where tormenting memories ruin his relationships until finally he learns to transmute them into literature. Podeswa manages his material with grace and sensitivity, but also has a way of romanticizing it: Although performed with complete conviction by all involved, Fugitive Pieces is an almost strenuously dignified enterprise—full of sumptuous yet faintly impersonal cinematography, hushed and archly eloquent voice-over narration and supporting characters who feel more like dramatic intentions than people.
