The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008)

Directed by Mark Herman. Starring Asa Butterfield, Vera Farmiga, David Thewlis, Jack Scanlon, Rupert Friend, Amber Beattie, David Heyman, Richard Johnson, Jim Norton. [PG-13]

Wrong-headed trivialization of the Holocaust as a parable for younger minds shows the son (Butterfield) of German officer Thewlis befriending the titular young Jew (Scanlon) who lives on the other side of electrified barbed wire in a concentration camp (a “farm,” as Butterfield believes). The best of intentions can’t conceal its naïveties, not just concerning its unenlightened protagonist, but also in the way it sanitizes the horror and encourages sympathy at the end for people who don’t deserve it—theirs is a universal pain, not one lamenting their active role or active disregard of unspeakable evil, and there’s no sense that anything was learned as a result of the darkly ironic “just desserts.” Well-acted, even though it’s odd how all of the performers (including American Farmiga) speak in English accents instead of German; James Horner’s score shows uncommon restraint until it boils over during the tragic climax. Not for nothing: in a movie released several years before an American political campaign developed their own nearly identical slogan, the Nazis are described as “making the country great again.” Director Herman also wrote the script, adapted from John Boyne’s youth novel.

42/100