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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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65
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Extreme Movie
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
Miramax Films
 |
|
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for some mature thematic material involving the Holocaust
Starring
David Thewlis,
Vera Farmiga,
Rupert Friend,
Asa Butterfield,
and
Jack Scalon
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a powerful fictional story that offers a unique perspective on how prejudice, hatred and violence affect innocent people, particularly children, during wartime. Through the eyes of an eight-year-old boy largely shielded from the reality of World War II, we witness a forbidden friendship that forms between Bruno, the son of Nazi commandant, and Shmuel, a Jewish boy held captive in a concentration camp. Though the two are separated physically by a barbed wire fence, their lives become inescapably intertwined. The imagined story of Bruno and Shmuel sheds light on the brutality, senselessness and devastating consequences of war from an unusual point of view. Together, their tragic journey helps recall the millions of innocent victims of the Holocaust. (Miramax Films)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Mark Herman
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Mark Herman
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
Theatrical: November 7, 2008
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
93 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
UK | USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
And yet the great conundrum of the Holocaust is that it was perpetrated by human beings, not monsters. Few movies have rendered this puzzle so powerfully.
88
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
Even though it unfolds almost entirely through a child's eyes, and contains no onscreen violence, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas packs as devastating a punch as an adult-oriented drama about the subject. Its concluding five minutes are almost impossible to watch.
88
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is not only about Germany during the war, although the story it tells is heartbreaking in more than one way. It is about a value system that survives like a virus.
88
USA Today
Claudia Puig
Viewers should know that the film's resolution, though admirably restrained and unsentimental, is devastatingly sad. Parents should take this into account. This beautifully rendered family film is told in a classic and old-fashioned style, in the best sense, providing poignant and powerful teachable moments.
83
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Tasha Robinson
The film has any number of chances to exploit the setting and Butterfield's wide-eyed innocence, but instead, it mines a vast, eerie tension by keeping both boys in the dark.
83
Portland Oregonian
Marc Mohan
Turns out this is a thoughtful, well-acted film that manages to view this most inconceivable of travesties through the eyes of child without being childish itself.
80
The Hollywood Reporter
Ray Bennett
Boyne's tale is starkly cautionary, and writer-director Herman handles a difficult topic with great sensitivity, drawing splendid performances from his young actors with David Thewlis and Vera Farmiga and the other grown-ups reliably efficient.
80
Variety
Derek Elley
Opening half-hour has some of the best stuff in the movie, walking a precarious line between black irony and showing the war from a totally German viewpoint, without tipping over into gallows humor or parody.
80
Village Voice
Chuck Wilson
In adapting Irishman John Boyne's acclaimed young-adult novel, writer-director Mark Herman (Little Voice) draws beautifully modulated performances from his two child actors, who navigate a full range of emotions from wonder to betrayal to guilt.
75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
In key ways, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is like Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth": a child, caught in the waking nightmare of one of history's ugliest times, confronting the horrors of a grown-up world, and dealing with them as best he, or she, can.
75
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
The power of this Holocaust tale sneaks up and floors you.
75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Told from a different angle than any other Holocaust film I've seen.
75
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
Because its gaze is so level and so unyielding, it stands as one of the better dramatic films made on this subject (although it's not nearly as fine as Louis Malle's "Au Revoir les Enfants."
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
The result isn't meant to be an historical document transmuted into fiction; instead, it's fiction turned into a fable, a dark fable.
70
Los Angeles Times
Sheri Linden
The film's two levels -- metaphoric and nitty-gritty -- don't mesh until the devastation of the closing sequence, which both indulges in and transcends melodrama.
63
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas should be heartbreaking, but it isn't. The muted quality of its impact is the result of narrative shortcuts and a desire to keep the images from being too startling.
50
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
Herman's intentions are admirable, but his results are unsettling in the worst ways.
50
New York Post
Kyle Smith
The bulk of the movie consists of scene after scene coyly setting up the same ironic juxtaposition, in the exact same way, about innocence vs. Nazism.
50
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
The film succeeds to the degree that it does -- partially, but honorably and sometimes affectingly -- because it was made as well as it was.
50
Austin Chronicle
Josh Rosenblatt
True artists will risk sacrificing audience goodwill for truth and sentimentality for cold historical reality, but Herman doesn't want your respect; he just wants your tears.
50
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
I found the movie impossibly basic and sanitized as a "never again" parable of the Final Solution - and simply wrongheaded as a story about children.
50
Washington Post
John Anderson
Although it's a far less objectionable Holocaust revision than, say, Roberto Benigni's "Life Is Beautiful," Herman's The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is yet another attempt to revisit a sorrowful event in history that should never be forgotten or used for entertainment.
40
NPR
Bob Mondello
The faux-naive point of view probably worked better in the novel; the literalness of film renders certain of the story's conceits overly precious.
38
TV Guide
Nathan Southern
Herman fails to journey beyond the surface-level realities of his central perspective, which makes his film feel half-developed and poorly conceived, and drives it into sensationalism.
30
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
Watching The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, it struck me that weaving a touching little tale about a death-camp friendship is actually a pretty bad way to teach kids about the Holocaust.
16
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
An appalling, jaw-dropping movie that will cause serious nightmares.
0
The New York Times
Manohla Dargis
See the Holocaust trivialized, glossed over, kitsched up, commercially exploited and hijacked for a tragedy about a Nazi family. Better yet and in all sincerity: don't.
0
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
This might have had some potential as a German exercise in self-examination, but as a tony BBC Films production, with the actors all speaking British-accented English (including Jersey girl Farmiga), it reeks of self-righteousness.
 The average user rating for this movie is 8.1 (out of 10) based on 23 User Votes
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