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November 7, 2008

At the Movies: Holocaust friendship tale goes over the top

By CHRISTY LEMIRE
AP Movie Critic

The family drama “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” depicts the Holocaust through the simplistic eyes of a child: all the brutality, all the absurdity, crystallized by the innocence of an 8-year-old boy.

THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS

Director: Mark Herman

Cast: Asa Butterfield, Jack Scanlon, Amber Beattie, David Thewlis, Vera Farmiga, Richard Johnson, Sheila Hancock, Rupert Friend, Jim Norton

Rating: PG-13 for some mature thematic material involving the Holocaust

Running time: 97 minutes
That lad is the son of a Nazi commandant, and he befriends a Jewish boy his age who is being held in the concentration camp his father oversees. Sounds mawkish, but the relationship between wide-eyed Bruno (Asa Butterfield) and sad-faced Shmuel (Jack Scanlon) is the most effective part of writer-director Mark Herman's needlessly overpowering film, based on John Boyne's novel.


 
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