Intelligently modulating its emotional intensity, A CALL TO REMEMBER is a dignified made-for-cable drama about the burden placed on the second-generation children of Holocaust victims. Although script and direction tend toward the prosaic, this story of loss moves the audience due to
exceptional performances by Blythe Danner and Joe Mantegna as concentration camp survivors.
For Paula (Blythe Danner) and David Tobias (Joe Mantegna), the good life in 1960s America comprises hard work and building a secure future for their sons, preteen Ben (Kevin Zegers) and high schooler Jake (David Lascher). Mr. and Mrs. Tobias alienate their boys by refusing to discuss their WWII
experiences and expecting Ben and Jake to be perfect, as their duty to all the children lost to genocide, whose numbers include Paula and Ben's children from previous marriages.
Ben yearns to play baseball, instead of burying himself in Yeshiva studies. Openly defiant, Jake withstands Paula's efforts to have a psychiatrist declare him unfit for the draft, despite his own reservations about military service in Viet Nam. The Tobias family's crossed purposes intersect when
Paula learns that her 27-year-old son Alec, presumed dead, has been located through a European refugee group. With her hopes raised stratospherically, Paula travels to New York City, only to learn the organization made a mistake. Despondent, she returns to find Jake in the process of moving out.
Half-heartedly attempting suicide by inhaling pesticides, Paula plunges into a deep guilt about her dead children. Ultimately, David is able to reach his estranged children by sharing with them his grief about his deceased wife and kids. Recovering from a nervous breakdown, Paula accepts Jake's
independence and shakes off her melancholy long enough to attend Ben's bar mitzvah. By allowing their sons to follow their own dreams, Paula and David put their unimaginable pain into a less damaging perspective.
This straightforward drama is stacked with the virtues of the well-made teleplay, the kind of cogent drama once popular on television staples like "Playhouse 90." Dramatically, the rising curve of crises spirals a bit too tidily to its ultimate conclusion, but the characters' journey of
self-discovery is nonetheless rewarding. Some Holocaust-themed dramas like Showtime's RESCUERS offerings cannot shake off a self-congratulatory Hollywood patina. Conversely, A CALL TO REMEMBER is spare and provocative. Few dramas have addressed the gulf that exists among foreign-born parents,
who've endured suffering that cuts them off from their assimilated children. Perceptively peering down that generational chasm, this melodrama forces viewers to think for themselves. In the process, it offers two virtuoso performances by stars Joe Mantegna and Blythe Danner, whose moving, but
unsentimental, portrayals make A CALL TO REMEMBER must-see viewing. (Extreme profanity, adult situations, nudity.) leave a comment
