This film had sat on my streaming list a long time before getting dropped. When I learned that my dad had received the DVD, I decided to join him for it. It's probably for the best that I waited, because heavy dramas can be easier to watch with company.
Bruno (Asa Butterfield in his breakout role), age 8, isn't happy about having to move from Berlin to the Polish countryside because of his military dad, Ralf (David Thewlis), getting a new post. With little to do by day when not under a propagandist tutor, he decides to explore the strange "farm" he can see from his window, against his parents' wishes that he not wander in that direction. There he sees the "farmers" behind an electric fence and meets the titular boy his age, Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), who's hiding from work at the moment but doesn't dare play. You probably already know more about the situation than Bruno does.
The innocent ignorance of Bruno -- and of Shmuel, to a lesser extent -- reminds me a bit of Life Is Beautiful, in which the protagonist hides the terrible truth from his son in the concentration camp. But while LIB is a comedy-drama, TBitSP never really ventures into comic relief. I think the closest I came to a chuckle was a line about "making this country great again." (Note the year of release; no modern jab was intended.)
Bruno has certainly heard of Jews before, falling silent when Shmuel self-identifies as one. By then, however, he knows enough about Shmuel and Pavel, a kitchen servant who visits from the camp, that he can't believe the propaganda. Much more gradual is his realization of how wretched and unfair the arrangement is -- and his father's considerable responsibility for it. After all, Ralf was sworn to secrecy even from his wife (Vera Farmiga), and Bruno catches sight of a dishonest documentary short that makes the camp look like Club Med.
Part of what makes the story interesting is seeing the different reactions from different people. Bruno's mom likes Ralf less and less the more she learns. Ralf's mom has never approved the Nazi Party. The household maid doesn't voice an opinion on the matter but lets Bruno get away with a lot of forbidden things, making me wonder how much she surmises; there are also subtle hints that she might be Jewish. On the other hand, lest you think that all the ladies are good, Bruno's 16-year-old sister is all about Nazism and has a crush on a brutal young officer, whom Ralf hypocritically disapproves for not ratting on his dissident refugee father.
I hesitate to praise Bruno's nobility. The first time he tries to bring food to Shmuel, he eats it all on the way. Later, he makes the cowardly decision to blame Shmuel for his own "offense." I was a little surprised that Shmuel forgives him so easily, but I guess in his situation, you take whatever friendship you can get.
That friendship does get heartwarming, but I hardly need tell you that there's no happy ending. In fact, it's worse than I foresaw. Let's just say that Ralf may have learned a hard lesson.
TBitSP is significantly more popular on IMDb than on Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic. I am aware of many ways in which it is unrealistic; most notably, real concentration camps put children to immediate death, not to work (and the film even slightly lowers their age from the book). You might also find the perfectly British accents jarring. I consider these details trivial. What matters is emotion.
Both my dad and I got heartaches, but in a way we could appreciate. I'll never outgrow the shock of the Holocaust, nor do I want to.
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