The Zookeeper's Wife (2017)

The Zookeeper's Wife (2017)

IMDB Rating : 7.1/10 (as on 05.04.2017)  

The Zookeeper's Wife tells the account of keepers of the Warsaw Zoo, Antonina and Jan Zabinski,who helped save hundreds of people and animals during the German invasion.

Director: Niki Caro

Writers: Angela Workman (screenplay), Diane Ackerman (book)

Stars: Jessica Chastain, Johan Heldenbergh, Daniel Brühl

PG-13 | 2h 4min | Biography, Drama, History

IMDB link Here

In ‘The Zookeeper’s Wife,’ the Holocaust Seems Tame

“‘Schindler’s List’ With Pets”: That’s my suggested alternate title for “The Zookeeper’s Wife.” This mild-mannered Holocaust film probably wasn’t conceived as family fare but is so timid and sanitized it almost feels safe for children.

Except for its scenes involving animals, this handsome, excessively fastidious screen adaptation of Diane Ackerman’s 2007 nonfiction best seller is a polite but pallid recycling of Holocaust movie tropes with epic pretensions. The book tells the true story of a Polish couple who rescued about 300 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto during the Holocaust and sheltered them in their zoo.

What does it say that the most stirring scenes in a movie that avoids graphic depictions of Nazi barbarism involve the heroic title character, Antonina Zabinska (Jessica Chastain), lovingly interacting with the animals in the Warsaw Zoo, which she runs with her husband, Jan (Johan Heldenbergh)?

In these tender moments, “The Zookeeper’s Wife,” directed by Niki Caro (“Whale Rider”), from an anemic screenplay by Angela Workman, shucks off its modesty and transforms into the sentimental portrait of a beautiful woman and the animals she cares for like a devoted parent. You can trust animals, but not people, she declares.

The most emotional scene has nothing to do with Nazis, Jews or the Holocaust. In this surefire set piece, which feels shoehorned into the film, Antonina saves the life of a baby elephant to which she administers CPR, risking being trampled by the adorable creature’s agitated mother. Otherwise, “The Zookeeper’s Wife” plays like a medium-gloss rerun of other more gripping depictions of Nazi evil and Jewish suffering.

There are ample opportunities for the movie to stir up fear each time the truck leaves the ghetto, but the film has little appetite for cliffhanging suspense. The fugitives who emerge from under the garbage don’t look much the worse for wear. Although not without moments of terror and desperation, the screenplay’s leisurely timing subverts their dramatic impact.

A subplot involves Antonina’s precarious balancing act as she charms the besotted Lutz, and resists surrendering to his increasingly aggressive moves as her jealous husband watches nervously from a distance. The screenplay is so frightened of this material that it isn’t always clear whether she has succumbed. But as Lutz evolves from a charmer into a bad, bad Nazi, the question of did she or didn’t she give in seems a feeble attempt to pump romantic excitement into a drama in dire need of moral complexity.

Ms. Chastain’s watchful, layered performance helps keep the film on an even keel, but it is not enough to prevent “The Zookeeper’s Wife,” with its reassuringly cuddly critters, from feeling like a Disney version of the Holocaust.

 Read full review at New york times

Movie Rating ★★★☆☆  

Jessica Chastain drama is wildly inconsistent

My favorite moment in Mel Brooks’s Spaceballs is when George Wyner explains the villains’ dastardly plan and Rick Moranis turns directly to the camera and says “everybody got that?” I was reminded of this during The Zookeeper’s Wife when Jan Zabinski, the zookeeper (Johan Heldenbergh), explains to his wife, Antonina (Jessica Chastain), how they can use the tunnels and shelters in their now empty zoo to aid Jews trying to escape the Warsaw ghetto. Hearing his plan, she nods, gives a faraway look and says: “A human zoo.”

It’s a flabbergasting bit of writing and fairly indicative of why this adaptation of a successful book with an A-list actress is being released in March and not November. All the elements are lined up for a major prestige success, until the movie itself starts to roll. Which isn’t to say this is a disaster; director Niki Caro actually has a considerable amount of storytelling finesse here and there. There are simply way too many moments like the howler cited above to recommend this without serious reservations.

The movie works best, though, when director Caro keeps things dialogue-free. The scenes in the ghetto are horrifying and, impressively, able to find corners of life that haven’t been exposed in the myriad Holocaust films that have come before. Despite starvation and terror, there are still teachers and pupils. And though our righteous Gentile heroes are putting their lives on the line to smuggle Jews out with a garbage removal scheme, other Poles dress up to take the second world war equivalent of a selfie in front of the fortified gate.

There are additional grace notes, such as an evening ritual when the basement of refugees come up for air once Antonina gives the all-clear by playing her piano. Tension mounts though when Brühl’s Lutz (who has a mad scheme to breed aurochs on the property) keeps sniffing around. He has eyes for Antonina, and they bond over their love of animals. The film almost gets into interesting territory with their relationship, but soon chucks that in favor of Lutz being just another diabolical Nazi.

Few of the hidden Jews are given the time to establish themselves as real characters, but Caro does good work with shorthand. There are some devastating images of children being loaded on to trains, their jolly, bearded teacher (Arnost Goldflam) trying to prevent them from panicking, though well aware himself they are en route to their doom. Caro goes in for closeups on each cherubic, smiling child with outstretched arms, waiting for a lift up into the cattle car.

But other scenes lack this perfect simplicity. The Zabinski basement is site to a Passover seder at the same moment the ghetto is burned, and the intercutting is far from subtle. The movie also finds a way to end with a bit of a chase sequence. These are disappointing style choices considering there are other moments in the film that work so well. (There is also quite a bit of animal killing – all faked, I’m sure, but some in the crowd I saw this with were audibly revolted, so this is your trigger warning.)

More than 300 Jews were rescued because of the zoo maneuvers, and the film does a good job working through the moral struggles of people who could not turn a blind eye to injustice. They do not come away unscathed, but it is evident that these were people who would have fared far worse if they didn’t do anything at all. All told The Zookeeper’s Wife is a story worth telling, even if there are a good number of not-so-hot spots along the way.

Read full review at The Guardian