Review: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

Set in the 1940s and told from the POV of eight year-old German boy Asa Butterfield, the youngest of two kids, to typical parents Vera Farmiga (with a perfect English accent, but slightly overwrought facial expressions) and military man father David Thewlis. Dad is thrown a party to celebrate a promotion (which pleases Thewlis’ traditional father Richard Johnson much more than his outspoken and liberal mother Sheila Hancock), which will mean a relocation for him, wife Farmiga, young Butterfield, and his teenage sister Amber Beattie. Lonely, and looking for something (or likely, someone) beyond the four walls of his new home, young Butterfield goes exploring near the adjoining ‘farm’ that his mother forbids him to go near (despite giving scant details on just what this place is and why it is forbidden). He can see this ‘farm’ from his bedroom window, and is intrigued by the pyjama-clad people he sees there. What he finds is a barbed-wire fence, and on the other side of it is young Jack Scanlon, a strange-looking boy around his own age. The thing is, Butterfield’s dad is a Nazi officer, and the ‘farm’ is...well, you’ll work it out long before innocent little Butterfield. Rupert Friend (stealing his every scene) is the strapping young Lieutenant who drops by from time to time, and whom Beattie develops a crush on. David Hayman is a hunched-over, pyjama-wearing servant, and in an underdeveloped role, a likeable Cara Horgan is the family housekeeper.

 

This 2008 film from writer-director Mark Herman (“Little Voice”) is, like “The Diary of Anne Frank”, the perfect entry point for youngsters in learning about the tragedy, shame, and horror of the Holocaust in a way that they can hopefully understand (Even though most of us adults still don’t quite understand such madness ourselves). I haven’t read it, but I bet the John Boyne young adult novel is even better. The opening reveal of Thewlis’ profession probably reads even better than it does translated to the screen, as would the notion of the pyjamas and the ‘farm’. However, even more so than the novel probably would, the film adds an extra sickening feeling in the audience because we know more about the situation than poor Butterfield does, we get a stomach-churning, ominous feel for what is to come, something the poor kid doesn’t. We know those aren’t pyjamas, and it isn’t a ‘farm’ that he is seeing. Obviously, it wouldn’t take a genius to work it out in the novel, I’m just saying that a film works in some different ways to a novel, as an audience/reader experience. And the revelation of Thewlis’ Nazi duty is still masterfully done on film. We see him (albeit briefly) as a loving dad before we see him in uniform, and it really takes one aback for a second.

 

Regardless, of whether its superior to the novel or not, this film is really confronting, tragic stuff nonetheless and works just fine on its own. Like the plight of Anne Frank, placing a child in this already tragic and disturbing event in history, brings an added layer of horror, disgust, and tragedy to it all, for children are the most innocent and defenceless of all. Just what would youngsters on either the Nazi or Jewish side of the fence have made of all this? What would their worldview have been like during this period? Well this story, as with Anne Frank’s diary, give us a glimpse, albeit a fictionalised one in this case. At first, Butterfield reacts to things as you’d expect any kid to, by thinking that it’s awfully silly that these ‘farmers’ are made to wear ‘pyjamas’. Kids often see the adult world for the silly bullshit that it often can be. However, it all gets pretty sobering and frightening by the end of the film, as you would also expect. Anyone not feeling queasy in their stomach by the film’s conclusion is clearly dead, if you ask me. I felt almost unbearably ill. The ending is like a swift kick to the nads, and if you find it contrived, you’re missing the point, massively. ***** SPOILER ALERT ***** Also, if you think the point of the film is to in any way sympathise with a Nazi family, well you’re a toolbucket. The film cries for all who suffered. It was pure madness. ***** END SPOILER *****

 

Most of the performances are tops, with Thewlis almost managing to make us like his most disturbing character (he is a loving, if sometimes aloof, father after all), and Friend is pretty damn impressive as the arrogant but charming Aryan soldier with a shameful secret. It’s also always nice to see old pro Johnson, as Thewlis’ proud German dad. I was particularly impressed by an absolutely heartbreaking David Hayman. You don’t get to see too many of the horrors of the holocaust in the film, but it’s right there in Hayman’s hobbled walk, skittish demeanour, and gaunt, sunken-eyed appearance. Asa Butterfield is perfectly cast as a literal wide-eyed innocent learning some very, very harsh and uncomfortable truths.

 

This is a really important film that, whilst not at all sympathising with the Nazis, certainly gives them a tragic human face or two in Thewlis and Friend. Really nice score by James Horner (“Battle Beyond the Stars”, “Cocoon”, “Aliens”, “Braveheart”), too. It kinda sneaks up on you without you even really noticing until the film is over. It’s a story that has been told before in varying ways, but it needs to be told. Told and told again. Told so that we learn to never allow anything like this to happen again. It works not only as an entry point into the subject for children, but for adults it’s just a really, really fine (and harrowing) film.

 

Rating: B