I’ll Find You

Directed by Martha Coolidge, I’ll Find You follows Robert (Leo Suter) and Rachel (Adelaide Clemens) as their love affair is cut short by the Second World War – with the narrative detailing Robert’s ongoing efforts at tracking Rachel down after she’s captured by the Nazis. It’s an inherently stirring premise that’s employed to sporadically watchable yet pervasively erratic effect by Coolidge, as the filmmaker, armed with David S. Ward and Bozenna Intrator’s screenplay, delivers an hit-and-miss endeavor that gets off to a decidedly less-than-auspicious start – with the movie’s opening stretch, which details the exploits of several hopelessly generic children, suffering from a low-rent and almost aggressively meandering feel that proves rather disastrous. There’s little doubt, then, that I’ll Find You improves slightly as it progresses into a midsection devoted to an appealing love triangle and Robert’s aforementioned attempts at tracking down Rachel, and it’s clear, as well, that the movie benefits from a smattering of unexpectedly compelling encounters and sequences (eg Robert attempts to board a train full of Nazi soldiers, Robert visits a recently-liberated concentration camp, etc). And although the intense final stretch ensures that the picture concludes on a positive note, I’ll Find You‘s overall impact is ultimately dulled by an overlong running time and general emphasis on far-from-enthralling elements – which, when coupled with a curiously uncinematic visual sensibility, cements the movie’s place as a decent-enough epic that feels like it could (and should) be so much better.

**1/2 out of ****