Movie Review: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
[xrr rating=3.5/5]
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
2008, 94mins, PG-13
Director: Mark Herman
Writer (s): Mark Herman, John Boyne (novel)
Cast includes: Asa Butterfield, David Thewlis, Vera Farmiga, Jack Scanlon, Rupert Friend
Release Date: 14th November 2008
Based on Irish author John Boyne’s excellent novel of the same name, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a well constructed and engaging film that should appeal to children and adults alike. It’s Holocaust set story never undermining the importance of those horrible events but at the same time infusing a sense of innocence into the whole affair which will undoubtedly make it more palatable for younger eyes. That said it’s probably at the expense of actual historical accuracy, in order to appreciate the relationship at the pictures core one with any knowledge of these events will have to toss out the textbooks and simply let the film take you where it will.
Eight year old Bruno (Asa Butterfield) has to leave Berlin in the midst of the Second World War due to his father’s (David Thewlis) important promotion in the ranks of the German army. His life in Berlin was happy and contented and arriving in his new home he feels bored and lonely, unable to understand why his parents plucked him from his happy existence in the city. One day however he spies a “farm” and despite strict instructions not to, he wanders over to it and finds Schmuel (Jack Scanlon) a boy his very same age, always dressed in pyjamas ,that is being kept behind a large fence for being a “Jew”. Bruno and Schmuel start to build a friendship but all around him Bruno begins to get signs that such relationships are highly forbidden, particularly from his father who seems to grow more disengaged from family life every day. Bruno and Schmuel keep meeting with only the fence between them, but no matter how hard he probes Bruno can’t find out the true reasons for the imprisoned boy in the striped pyjamas.
The film’s holocaust setting is neatly staged, viewers will be fully aware that the farm Bruno believes himself to be frequenting is indeed a death camp and that the real reasons for his fathers promotion is to run said facility. However the whole point of Boyne’s novel was to show one of the greatest atrocities in mankind’s history through the naïve eyes of a child, and it’s a theme that the film adaptation captures in admirable fashion. Director Mark Herman maintains a light edge and focus on the central relationship which consistently screams of childhood innocence, and stays loyal to the text from which he sources his screenplay.
The performances from the two child actors are good and together they build a believable bond, but in truth the best turns are provided by adults Vera Farmiga and David Thewlis. Both command the screen when they appear, Thewlis as the ever hardening father, Farmiga as the lonely and depressed mother quietly resenting everything going on around her. At times Farmiga’s story arc detracts from the pure and simply world of the young stars, but this unbalance may have been a necessary sacrifice in order to keep adult viewers fully satisfied. After all by ignoring the historical incidents altogether Herman could have almost risked insulting those who may have family stock in the terrible occurrences featured.
The central relationship is structured well and feels genuine, but in order to accept the circumstances with which such a bond could develop viewers are advised to suspend disbelief where the film asks it off them. Historically it would have been unlikely that a German child could have gotten within a mile of a death camp without being sent back and so that Bruno the son of the camps head could access it so easily is a fact requiring a degree of generous audience discretion. Such forgiving will be required of the viewer in order to buy into the emotionally solid and well performed friendship at the films heart, and to enable them to embrace the sheer audacity and power of the pictures ending. All I’ll say is that in adapting this story Herman has stood loyal to Boyne’s nihilistic and potent conclusion.
For Herman as a director this isn’t a perfect film but it is a very good one, certainly an improvement over his last effort behind the camera with 2003’s repulsive Hope Springs. Visually the film is very much in tone with the ongoing character interpretations of events surrounding them, Bruno’s world is for the most part colorful and inviting whilst Farmiga’s is drab and depressing from the moment she finds out the true purpose of the death camps.
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a film worth seeing thanks to assured performances and an intrepid ending, the historical inaccuracy can be forgiven on the grounds that it succeeds well where it has to, as can most of the other minor faults that effect the production. Fans of the book should be pleased with this heartfelt and loyal adaptation, a film certainly to be deployed in future generations in order to explain the horrors on which it’s based. After all when the message is this clear and the ending so brutally memorable, one can forgive the overlooking of minor historical detail. Heart in this case truly does usurp the mind.
2 Responses to “Movie Review: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”
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this movie was one of the best movies I have ever seen in my life. the plot was incredible and the attitudes was superb. I cried during most of the film. I feel an obligation to the history and to study it more in depth thanks to this movie. love it and give it and A+++
I laughed from the beginning to the end, Bruno was outragious!