At the start of the film we meet Tahar Rahim as village blacksmith Nazaret Manoogian. Life is peaceful for him and his family, until the Turkish police invade their home and forcibly take NazAret away, announcing that he must become a soldier. We follow the sad path of his life through the brutality during the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.

There is a brutal scene of execution of Armenian men, with Nazaret surviving, but with a throat cut that takes away his speech. We see a forced death march of men, women and children, and learn of the slaughter of the Armenians in Nazaret’s village. Eventually he hears that his twin daughters survived, and the film turns into his international hunt for them. Following information that he gleans, the search takes him to Cuba and the United States, wending his way amid constant hardships as far as Minnesota and North Dakota.

Nazaret’s journey takes on epic proportions. At times some of the links seem contrived, but nonetheless Rahim’s sympathetic performance makes one feel deeply for Nazaret and root for his quest to be successful. The effective supporting performances add to the overall realism. Director Akin spins the tale with suspense as the years go by and he maintains an underlying awareness of the suffering and injustice at the root of Nazaret’s plight.