The Boy With the Striped Pajamas

The Boy With the Striped Pajamas, from a novel by John Boyne, is a controversial film. It takes place during the Holocaust and something like this could not have happened. But it is not a documentary and I feel that the film is more symbolic than historically true.

Young Bruno (Asa Butterfield) is very proud of his soldier father (David Thewlis). When his father gets a promotion the family has to move from Berlin to the country. What is not known then is that their new home is very close to a concentration camp.

Bruno and his sister Gretel (Amber Beattie) get a tutor who fills their heads with pro-Nazi propaganda. Gretel seems to be very gung ho but not so Bruno. During his explorations of the area he finds the concentration camp and befriends a young prisoner named Shmuel (Jack Scanlon). They are both the same age. At this point Bruno gets some sense of the agony that the Jews have been going through.

When Bruno's mother (Vera Farmiga) finds out what is actully going on she is revolted. This puts a strain on her marriage.

That is really all I will tell you. All of the child actors are terrific. Thewlis is very good and Farmiga is outstanding.

This film is about the loss of innocence. But it is also about the horrors of what happened back then. And it is something that rings very true today. Evil is alive and well and it affects all of us - not just one group of people. See this film but prepared to come out of the theater heartbroken.