In Darkness
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Metascore
74 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 36 Critics What's this?

User Score
6.9 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 9 Ratings

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  • Summary: In Darkness is based on a true story. Leopold Socha, a sewer worker and petty thief in Lvov, a Nazi occupied city in Poland, one day encounters a group of Jews trying to escape the liquidation of the ghetto. He hides them for money in the labyrinth of the town’s sewers beneath the bustling activity of the city above. What starts out as a straightforward and cynical business arrangement turns into something very unexpected, the unlikely alliance between Socha and the Jews as the enterprise seeps deeper into Socha’s conscience. The film is also an extraordinary story of survival as these men, women and children all try to outwit certain death during 14 months of ever increasing and intense danger. (Sony Classics)… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 31 out of 36
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 36
  3. Negative: 1 out of 36
  1. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    Feb 23, 2012
    100
    In Darkness is an extraordinary movie, and somehow good art creates its own uplift.
  2. Time Out New York
    Reviewed by: David Fear
    Dec 6, 2011
    60
    You know the money-over-morality argument will eventually tilt toward righteousness, yet the film's turn toward charcoal-sketch notions of good and evil only fuels a simplistic view of historical tragedy in the worst sort of way.
  3. Slant Magazine
    Reviewed by: Jaime N. Christley
    Feb 6, 2012
    12
    It's the rare film that should not introduce new story elements or characters past its first act. In Darkness, a garbage movie applying for unlimited credit on the most meager collateral, is that film.

See all 36 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 3
  3. Negative: 0 out of 3
  1. jeremyp
    8
    A taut thriller about a true story of a dozen jews hiding out in a sewage system under Warsaw in 1944-45. Their savior is a Catholic Pole who starts off as your usual anti semitic Polish peasant type yet develops, against his own fear and biases, into a true hero, warts and all. His motivation starts off as greed (they pay him in cash and jewelry) but grows from that to humanitarian concern, in part due to his more liberal wife. The characters are well developed and show an honest diversity of humans all dealing with imprisonment, terror, and starvation. A well crafted movie that tells itself without undue drama or pity. I'm not sure how well it will play out in Poland, a country well known for it's depravity and soullessness to it's own Jewish citizens.… Expand
  2. NJWolfgang
    6
    There is a certain poignancy to this film but that lays within the story and nothing else. There's little connection between the viewer and the story unfolding. There is little connection between the watcher and the characters. It misses. The empathy is there but there's no connection.… Expand
  3. CitizenCharlie
    4
    In Darkness is aptly titled. This film is incredibly dark, both in a lighting sense and its subject matter. Based on the book, In the Sewers of Lvov: a Heroic Story of Survival from the Holocaust, In Darkness joins a long line of films which document Jewish ghettos during World War II. The story follows an individual group of Jews who evade the Nazis once the ghetto massacre begins. The group dug a hole from one of their small apartments which leads down into the murky mess of the Lvov, Poland sewers. The resident lord of the sewers is Lvov’s sewer inspector, Leopold Socha (Robert Wieckiewicz). He is a blue collar worker who is just trying to get through the German occupation as best he can. Along with his assistant, Socha ransacks houses formerly occupied by Jews to steal whatever he can and sell the stolen goods to help support his wife Wanda (Kinga Preis) and his young daughter. One day while working in the sewer, Socha comes upon a group of Jews who have just completed digging a hole from the Jewish ghetto into the sewer. Socha has no love for Jewish people but he has no direct animosity either. In exchange for a hefty sum of cash, Socha agrees to keep mum about the hole and if the time comes, will help a small number of them evade the Nazis and find good hiding spots. Naturally, the storming of the ghetto comes sooner than expected. The scene of the in-the-know Jews who attempt to flee into the sewer is ridiculous. They fight among themselves on who should go first, physically stuff those into the hole who do not want to go, and in a completely absurd aside, a wife and her daughter refuse to escape with them because her husband has been cheating on her. Socha is true to his monetarily purchased word and leads this infighting rabble to an out of the way location in the sewer. The sewer maze is an impressive set design with the disgusting atmosphere to match. It is incredibly dark, dirty, rat infested, cold, and full of unimaginable pestilence. However, compared to the massacre occurring right above their heads, the sewer is safe. Unfortunately, the sewer will not accommodate the amount of people in their group. Socha says he can only safely hide 10 of them and in a brutal scene, the financier and leader of the group choose those 10. The others are left to their own volition. The group’s leaders are the strong and able Mundek (Benno Furrmann) and the financier Ignacy Chiger (Herbert Knaup). The Nazis and their Polish sympathizers know there are Jews hiding out in the sewers; some residents can smell boiled onions coming up through their toilets. There is a bounty for whoever turns them in and if Socha is caught, he will be shot right along with the captured Jews. The rest of In Darkness is a series of scenes of infighting amongst the Jews who are cramped in very tight and disgusting quarters and infighting between Socha and his wife and Socha and his assistant, who is sometimes in on the scheme. These seemingly unending episodes of fighting and sniping become truly tedious after awhile. Scene after scene of this eventually gets under the audience’s skin and they welcome the eventual ending after its 145 minute run time. Breaths of fresh air are provided by Mr. Chiger’s two children who are a welcome respite from the malicious adults in the room and Socha’s gradual metamorphosis from a financially motivated shelter provider to a man who realizes he has a soul which cares about these human beings. The cinematography and art direction of these sewers are really remarkable as is the contrast in lighting between the action which takes place above ground opposed to the events happening underneath. Unfortunately, the script does not match the shadowy mise-en-scene and In Darkness suffers for it. This Polish film earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film but it is clear why it did not win. The muddled sequence of events and unending episodic turmoil morphs from a troubling World War II story to one of near irritation. A more adept script would have catapulted this film to much more notoriety than it is receiving now. There are a multitude of other World War II films to enjoy, do not waste your time on this one.… Expand

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