Holocaust – We Are Movie Geeks

ELEANOR THE GREAT – Review

This weekend, moviegoers will get to savor another wonderful performance from a veteran actor who has been enjoying a remarkable “second act”. That curtain rose almost a dozen years ago when director Alexander Payne realized, to the delight of her new fans, that she was his “secret weapon” in the character “dramedy” NEBRASKA. In it, she earned raves and was frequently referred to as a “scene-stealer”. If that’s a crime, well, she was so “guilty” that she was “sentenced” to. her first Oscar nomination for Supporting Actress (note that I said “first”). Last year, she garnered more accolades in her first lead performance in the “sleeper hit” THELMA (and she even did some stunt work). Pretty nice for somebody who’s been in small TV and movie roles for the last 40 years (while still working on the stage, going all the way back to the original touring company of “Gypsy” with Ethel Merman). Now, she returns as another title character. And this time she’s guided by a current screen star who makes her feature directing debut with ELEANOR THE GREAT.

The royal “moniker” is given to the story’s main focus, the irascible 94-year-old widow Eleanor Morganstern (June Squibb), who is living a quiet life in a retirement apartment complex, sharing a unit with another widow, her BFF Bessie (Rita Zohar). Aside from her recurring nightmares about her time in a WWII concentration camp (Eleanor has always lived in the States), the two enjoy a quiet life in Florida. But the clouds form over the Sunshine State when Bessie unexpectedly passes. Rathing than wallowing in her grief, Eleanor decides to make a bold move. She’s relocating to NYC, and spending her last years with her divorced daughter Lisa (Jessica Hecht) and her college-aged son Max (Will Price). It’s a significant change for Eleanor, as she occupies a spare bedroom in Lisa’s place while contemplating another move, possibly to a retirement community. Lisa nudges her to go out and meet folks her own age. Initially resistant, Eleanor finally heads down to the nearby Jewish adult education facility to look into their “senior singing” classes. After a quick peek, she decides this isn’t for her and is headed back home until a friendly lady leads her into another room where her “group” is about to begin. After it starts, Eleanor realizes that this is a “support” meeting for Holocaust survivors. Though embarrassed at first, she decides to stay, perhaps getting some comfort after the loss of her old friend. But things soon take an “odd” turn when Eleanor is asked to “share”, and haltingly repeats a memory from the late Bessie. The heartbreaking tale captures the attention of a young journalism student who is “sitting in”, Nina (Erin Kellyman). She and Eleanor strike up a friendship as the “little white lie” grows and grows, with Nina sharing her story with her newscaster father, Roger (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who wants to do a feature piece on Eleanor’s desire to finally have her own bat mitzvah. Can Eleanor keep this all from her family before her “fib” is broadcast and she is “found out”?

At the “forefront” of this engaging character study is that “force of nature”, Ms. Squibb. As with her other recent work, she captures our hearts with her incredible “can-do” spirit and deft comic timing (not since the much-missed Betty White has a nonagenarian launched scalding insults with such precise accuracy). But her Eleanor is more than a sharp-tongued white-haired sprite. She’s had to put up a tough-as-nails exterior to cope with the loss of loved ones, especially Bessie, along with her own impending mortality. Plus, there’s also her panic as she scrambles to try and charm her way out of her own web of well-intentioned deceit. Happily, though, this isn’t a one-woman “showcase” (which would still be very entertaining), as Squibb proves to be an excellent screen “partner” to the talented Ms. Kellyman (I recall her interesting villainess in “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”) as the much-younger woman also dealing with a major loss. Nina, despite her own tough outer “shell”, still mourns her own deceased mom, so her connection to Eleanor seems to fulfill her yearning for a matronly connection (though Eleanor may be more of a surrogate grandmother). Kellyman shows how she beams under the elder lady’s lifeforce, while her homelife is far less nurturing due to her now-strained interaction with her father. Ejiofor as Roger, also seems to be wearing a mask of strength, as he seems to be denying and “pushing down” his own grief while trying to find a way to reach out and connect to his drifting child. Hecht balances the delicate balance of an adult daughter who must also act as parent to her “prodigal” mama as she strains to retain her own freedom. In the pivotal role of beloved Bessie, Zohar is a most resilient survivor, a woman who has lost so much but pushes on, despite those demons of a distant past.

Oh, the big screen star that’s now behind the camera for this? None other than Scarlett Johansson, fresh off helming a couple of short films. And it appears she’s got another talent in her considerable “arsenal” (she’s been acting for over thirty years now). Ms. J brings a quiet sensitivity to this modern morality tale, gently pacing the plot points and set pieces, eschewing any flashy narrative tricks, though she smartly dissolves to Bessie telling her past horrors during Eleanor’s support group sequences. Johansson also shows us how the new friendship between E and Nina really helps them move forward while attempting to manage their shared grief. Much of the film’s power derives from the script by another feature film newcomer, Tory Kamen. She has a keen ear for family conversation, while still squeezing in humor to balance the pathos. And it all looks and sounds great courtesy of cinematographer Helene Louvart (the NYC neighborhoods look most inviting) and the score by Dustin O’ Halloran. as the summer of loud action blockbusters begins to recede, it’s great to have a sweet, funny, and compassionate visit from Ms. Squibb who has us worried and rooting, and a bit smitten, as ELEANOR THE GREAT.

3.5 Out of 4

ELEANOR THE GREAT opens in select theatres on Friday, September 26, 2025

WHITE BIRD – Review

*Helen Mirren as Grandmère in WHITE BIRD: A WONDER STORY. Photo Credit: Larry Horricks. Courtesy of Lionsgate*

Helen Mirren stars as a French Jewish grandmother who survived the Holocaust in the family drama WHITE BIRD. Concerned about her grandson Julian (Bryce Gheisar), a boy who is struggling to fit in at his new school after being expelled from his previous one for mistreatment of another student, Grandmere (Mirren) recounts her youthful experiences, a story of her past he has never heard, to teach Julian about the lasting power of kindness. In flashback, the grandmother’s story takes us to WWII France, to her old French village in the woods, where the kindness of a non-Jewish boy saved her life.

Also starring Gillian Anderson, WHITE BIRD is a moving, beautifully-shot and sensitively-told family drama from director Marc Forster, who also directed NEVERLAND. The film is essentially a young adult tale, offering a coming-of-age, historical drama about a grandmother teaching her troubled grandson valuable life lessons about bravery and kindness, by using her own experiences surviving the Holocaust. The screenplay by Mark Bomback is based on a graphic novel by R.J. Palacio, “White Bird: A Wonder Story,” which is a composite of several true stories that are lightly fictionalized. This coming-of-age family drama is part of a series, “Wonder films,” which aims to inspire hope, kindness and humanity.

Rather than the usual historical drama, WHITE BIRD has an unexpected element, which is a hint of Brothers Grimm fairy tale in how this grandmother recounts her wartime experiences to her grandson. Starting with voice-over by Mirren, the film begins its travels to the past by describing the place where she grew up like something out of those Grimm fairy tales: an ancient French town with an old castle at its center and surrounded by deep, dark woods. As a young girl, Sara was afraid to go into the woods, for fear of wolves. The one exception is in the spring, when she and her parents picnic in the woods where the bluebells bloom. Mind you, the tone here is Brothers Grimm, not Disney, with those darker stories’ pattern of a peaceful life falling under darkness and evil but with some light emerging in the end.

The film moves back and forth in time a bit, as storyteller Grandmere Sara weaves her own history into a lesson for her troubled grandson. Young Sara (Ariella Glaser) is a beloved only child, a bit spoiled, the daughter of a doctor father and a math teacher mother. They have a comfortable life. At school, bright Sara also shows a talent for drawing, and is encouraged by her teacher. Sara has a crush on a handsome boy, Vincent (Jem Matthews), but like most of the students, she ignores another boy, who had polio and now walks with a crutch and a leg brace, although some students target him for taunting and bullying.

When the Nazis arrive, nothing much changes at first, even for French Jewish families like Sara’s, because the town is in “unoccupied” France. Then things do start to change, with signs banning Jews going up in shop windows and Jewish people losing their jobs, including Sara’s mother. When Nazis come to the school to round up the Jewish students, Sara manages to escape and hides in the school. She is unsure what to do, until the boy with the crutch, whose name is Julien (Orlando Schwerdt), offers his help. Julien smuggles her out and takes her to his parents’ farmhouse, where his kind-hearted non-Jewish parents hide her.

Sara is hidden in the barn, because Julien’s kindly parents, Vivienne (Gillian Anderson) and Jean Paul (Jo Stone-Fewings), worry that their nosey neighbors might be Nazi sympathizers and might expose her. Hiding her puts them at risk too but Vivienne especially is warm and supportive of the frightened girl. Thoughtful Julien brings Sara food, but also drawing materials and books, and tutors her in school work, so she can keep up. In the barn, they two young people grow close, escaping into a world of imagination by using an old car to pretend to travel, making up stories of adventure.

As expected, Helen Mirren is charmingly winning as the lively, artist grandmother. The bulk of the film is the historical flashback, and there both Ariella Glaser and Orlando Schwerdt excel in their roles as Sara and Julien, with an especially good performance from young Schwerdt. Gillian Anderson is very good as Julien’s warm, supportive mother but it is really the young actors who shine at the center of this drama.

As the tense story of the Jewish girl hidden in the barn unfolds, director Forster skillfully weaves in a message of hope and human empowerment into this sensitively-told wartime drama. The story mirrors many of the true stories of hidden children or families aided by their non-Jewish neighbors. The Nazi threat is always looming, and increased when a group of local boys, including Sara’s crush Vincent, join the Nazis as a town militia. Yet Forster’s storytelling puts an emphasis on the power of human kindness, and bravery in the face of cruelty. The film is, by turns, tense and dramatic or touching and inspiring, portions that Forster skillfully balances. Part coming-of-age tale, part war drama, the film also looks at friendship, budding romantic feelings, and focuses on the power of imagination and art.

This is an emotionally powerful film, that is mostly very well-told, apart from one scene, with wolves in the woods, that leans a bit too heavily into the Grimm’s fairy tale aspect. Overall, WHITE BIRD is a moving, hopeful tale of courage that has the benefit of being a rare survivor’s story film that one is told in a manner appropriate for younger people (preteens, although not the very young) while still teaches some valuable lessons about the power of human kindness in overcoming evil. As the grandmother says near the film’s end, paraphrasing Martin Luther King, “You cannot fight darkness with darkness, only with light.”

WHITE BIRD opens Friday, Oct. 4, at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Cinema.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars

LEE – Review

*Andy Samberg as David E Scherman and Kate Winslet as Lee Miller, in LEE. Photo by Kimberley French. Courtesy of Roadside Attractions and Vertical.*

The name Lee Miller may not be familiar but you have most likely seen her photos, some of the first and most iconic of Nazi concentration camps, taken immediately after the defeat of Nazi Germany. The photos show concentration camp survivors and the dead, which proved that the wartime rumors of the Holocaust were true. Lee Miller’s shocking, heartbreaking photos were published in an article titled “Believe It” in American Vogue, dispelling doubts about what had happened in Germany.

That a fashion magazine like Vogue would be the one that published them seems highly unlikely, yet so was the career and life of Lee Miller. Directed by acclaimed cinematographer Ellen Kura, making her feature film directorial debut, the stirring, inspirational drama LEE takes audiences from Lee Miller’s days as a New York fashion model-turned fashion photographer in Paris, who is living a life of pleasure among such important artistic figures as Picasso (Enrique Arce) and surrealist art photographer Man Ray (Samuel Barnett), who mentored her, to her years as a war correspondent and photographer in France and then post-war in Germany.

Kate Winslet gives a breathtaking performance, both as the older Lee Miller and the younger one in pre-war Paris, wartime London and France, and post-war Germany. The older Lee, chain-smoking and downing scotch, recounts her amazing career to a young interviewer (Josh O’Connor), in a framing device that brackets the historical tale.

LEE also features a host of stars, including Andy Samberg, Alexander Skarsgard, Andrea Riseborough, and Marion Cotillard, and a lot of famous names, in this true story.

Lee Miller started out as a fashion model in New York, achieving success in that field but Miller longed switch careers to photography, a life-long passion. Saying she was done with modeling, Lee moved to Paris, and the drama picks up Lee’s story there, where she is living a high-octane bohemian life, as part of a social circle that includes Pablo Picasso and surrealist photographer Man Ray, who was her mentor and lover. Lee is growing dissatisfied with that life when she meets British artist Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgard).

Persuaded to join Penrose in London, Miller escapes shortly before the Nazis invade France, trapping her old friends. In London, Miller gets the chance to break into photography, as a fashion photographer working for editor Audrey Withers (Andrea Riseborough) who also employs Cecil Beaton, the royal family’s favorite photographer, who snubs the model-turned-photog. As WWII sweeps across Europe, Lee Miller fights to be able to cover the war, finally returning to France and teaming up with Jewish American photographer David Scherman (Andy Samberg), who was working for Life magazine.

As the war ends, Miller and Scherman race to Germany to capture photographic evidence of Hitler’s evil. The bold, bohemian Lee Miller also finds Hitler’s now vacant apartment, where she and Scherman collaborate on a famous photo of a nude Miller in Hitler’s bath tub with her muddy boots from her visit to Dachau next to the tub, a shot taken just as Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker.

Before Lee and Scherman leave post-war Paris for newly-fallen Germany, Lee finds one her French friends from her carefree pre-London days, Solange D’Ayen (played movingly by Marion Cotillard, in a heartbreaking performance), who hiding in a deserted Nazi command center. Solange has been shattered by the war, and her imprisonment by the Nazis, and now, post war, she waits for her missing husband to return. Lee also encounters other old friends, Paul Eluard (Vincent Colombre), a poet and French Jew, and his wife Nusch Eluard (Noemie Merlant).

Winslet transforms herself from the elegant, hedonistic model-turned-photographer into a fearless, hard-drinking, tough war correspondent Lee became during the war and post-war. It is a showcase performance but both Winslet and Samberg are wonderful in their scenes together, showing real chemistry between the actors. Samberg’s Scherman is steady and reliable but finally briefly breakdowns emotionally after Dachau, crying out about “his people” and Hitler’s evil, in a moving scene. Both Samberg’s Davy Scherman and Winslet’s Lee Miller are passionate about their work, willing to face danger in the field to tell this important story and record it for history. On the other hand, Alexander Skarsgard’s aristocratic Brit Roland Penrose remains a pacifist, who opposes Hitler but does not comprehend Lee’s fearless willingness to place herself in harm’s way.

First-time director Ellen Kura crafts inspiring, powerful film filled with dramatic photography as LEE tells the too-little known story of this fearless, feminist, one-of-a-kind woman who broke barriers for women war correspondents, as she and fellow American war photojournalist Davy Scherman (Andy Samberg) covered the war and then pushed on to post-war Germany. If the film has a flaw, it is in the somewhat awkward framing device, although at the drama’s end you learn why it was used. However, it is a small flaw in an otherwise outstanding film, featuring an outstanding performance from Winslet, playing a historical figure whose name should be better known. Lee Miller left a photographic record of the horrors of Hitler’s hate, and her famous, emotionally-powerful photos still appear in countless books and articles about the Holocaust.

LEE opens Friday, Sept. 27, at multiple area theaters.

RATING: 3.5 out of 4 stars

ZONE OF INTEREST – Review

The “zone of interest” is the euphemism the Nazis used to describe the area around Auschwitz, which included where the SS Nazi concentration camp commandant Rudolf Hoess and his wife Hedwig lived with their children, in a house right next to the death camp. In the historical drama THE ZONE OF INTEREST, we see Hoess and his wife going about their ordinary-seeming private life, trying to build “an idyllic life” right in the shadow of Auschwitz, while determinedly ignoring the horror that was happening right next to them. This chilling embodiment of Hannah Arendt’s phrase “the banality of evil” is at the center of director Jonathan Glazer’s powerful historic drama THE ZONE OF INTEREST.

German star Sandra Huller (ANATOMY OF A FALL, TONI ERDMANN) plays Hedwig, the wife of the Nazi SS officer commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Rudolf Hoess (played by another German star, Christian Friedel), as the couple raise their children and “strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp,” as the film’s notes put it.

Both Huller and Friedel resisted the idea of playing Nazis, which is no wonder, but the point of this drama is to portray both the ordinary humanity of the camp commandant and his wife and the extraordinary inhumanity of their actions and ideas, and the actors were persuaded when they understood the film’s intentions. A sense of the “banality of evil” pervades this film, as it focuses on their rationalizing of the awful and a human capacity to deliberately ignore cruelty, particularly in the service of personal ambitions. Glazer makes the point that this human failing is not something of the past, but something that could happen today. If anything, it illustrates how close this flaw in humanity is to the surface even now.

The idea of building a “dream life” next to a place of mass death seems both bizarre and inconceivable yet that is what the real couple tried to do, which required some determined, cold blindness to the evil on the other side of the wall. As the family’s father goes off to work, we stay behind with the family and wife Hedwig, who is thrilled with the large house and has remade the field next to it into a lovely garden.

The film opens with the family enjoying a beautiful day on the banks of a lovely river, swimming and picnicking. We watch them do ordinary things – throwing a birthday party for the father, watching the children play or going off to school, watching the wife have coffee with friends or work in her garden. Their life is comfortable, with a large house, and beyond it, a large garden with flowers, a patio, playground and even a swimming pool. Beyond that are stables for the commandant’s horses and fields and forests to ride in, with a river nearby. But the high wall the family compound shares with the concentration camp is just steps away from the house’s front door.

When Hoess leaves for his work, we don’t follow him but stay with the wife as she goes about her day.

We don’t see what happens in the concentration camp, but we do hear sounds, of shouting or gunfire, and sometimes we see smoke rising from the chimney or ash falling on the flowers. We see a few prisoners working in the garden and a slave-labor detail toiling outside the walls. Although there is no on-screen violence, it is ever present in our minds.

The private life of the Nazi commandant and his family is the focus, and following them, particularly the wife Hedwig, through their ordinary days emphasize their human side, yet slowly reveals the inhumanity in their characters as well, aided by their selfishness, personal ambitions and deliberate blindness. When her mother comes to visit, she asks about where the Jews are, and Hedwig cold says they are on the other side of the wall, in a voice dripping with hate. In another scene, we see Hedwig and some friends, even staff, go through some clothes. We assume they are Hedwig’s castoffs, until she picks a fur coat and takes it upstairs to try on, and we realize they are possessions of newly-arrived prisoners. A current of chilling horror runs throughout the film, as it coolly observes their domestic life in a distant way, and lets their actions reveal their true dark nature.

THE ZONE OF INTEREST was loosely adapted from Martin Amis’ novel of the same name by writer/director Jonathan Glazer. The film has been nominated for an Oscar and won both the Grand Prix and FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes. Glazer decided to take a very different approach to making a “Holocaust film,” by refraining from showing the violence we know is going on inside the camp and instead focusing on the Nazis perpetrators, to show their humanity rather than demonizing them, to pointedly underline that it was ordinary humans who carried out the inhumanity of the Holocaust.

Jonathan Glazer, who was born in London to a Jewish family, has said that this film is not about the past but the present. The British director shot his German-language historical drama on location in Poland at the Auschwitz concentration camp. The commandant’s house still stands right next to the wall of part of the camp but due to restrictions at the protected historic site, the director decided to recreate the house interiors and garden, which were new at the time, for the film in an old officers barracks adjacent to Auschwitz. Being at the actual site added to the film’s feeling of tension, as did the director’s choice to film scenes in the house with multiple surveillance cameras, which gives it a “fly on the wall” vibe.

The commandant in Martin Amis’ novel was based on the real Nazi Rudolf Hoess, but director Glazer leaned into that even more, researching details about the commandant and the time period when he was at Auschwitz. To be clear, despite the similar name, Rudolf Hoess is not the same person as Rudolf Hess, one of Hitler’s top leaders. This Nazi, Rudolf Hoess was the long-time commandant of Auschwitz and is considered a possible architect of the Nazis’ “final solution,” an efficient killer who was hanged after the war.

Glazer set the film near a time when Hoess received a promotion that would have meant relocating to Berlin, and his wife Hedwig became upset at the thought of giving up the beautiful house and garden she had worked on so hard. A couple reluctant to relocate for a husband’s job has a human ordinariness to it but we quickly are reminded that his “job” is killing when he meets with his Nazi “bosses.”

While the film is presented from the viewpoint of the Nazi family, it is not their point-of-view but a dispassionate observation of who and what they really are. Another thing that sets this film apart from most Holocaust-themed films is it’s use of experimental, symbolic scenes and that it refrains from showing violence directly. That is not to say it it absent, as it is very present in our minds, if not visible on screen.

While many scenes are presented in a straightforward dramatic way, a few are strikingly experimental. One example is a scene where the commandant reads bedtimes stories, a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, to his children. As he reads, we see black-and-white negative images of a little girl walking through the woods. Slowly we realize it is not an illustration of the fairy tale but infrared images of a girl who reaches her destination and begins pushing apples into piles of soil. Her purpose is mysterious until a later scene, where we see the camp’s prisoners taken to a site nearby working with those same piles of dirt, and see the apples embedded in them, and remember an earlier scene where the commandant rode his horse through a field filled with fallen apples. We make the connection that we were watching a Polish girl from a local village, secretly leaving food under cover of night.

The film’s sense of horror comes from knowing what is happening rather than any scenes of violence. We do not see the violence on the other side of the wall but we do hear sounds, of gunshots and shouting, and we see the smoke rising from the chimney. While the couple blocks out what is happening right next to them, we see one of the children become upset by the sounds. When Hedwig’s mother comes for a visit, she is unable to ignore the horror going on next door the way her daughter does, and cuts her visit short.

The tone of the film is cool and distant despite the intimacy of the situations. Scenes were shot in an observational style, with few close-ups. Both Sandra Huller as Hedwig, who is more the film’s main focus, and Christian Friedel, as Rudolf Hoess, play the characters in an emotionally restrained manner, with dead eyes and cold smiles.

Hedwig and Rudolf Hoess compartmentalize, so they can block out the horror and their responsibility for it. It is more about self-interests and personal dreams. The couple don’t spout Nazi ideas – but they talk about their personal ambitions and revel in living in material comfort. In one scene, the couple talk about plans for becoming farmers after the war, in a creepy fantasy of Ayran prosperity.

The film is not the typical historical drama about the Holocaust, not just by focusing on the Nazi commandant’s family, but by it’s fly-on-the-wall observations of the family and some artistically creative dream-like symbolic scenes. The style of the film is artistic rather than a more conventional drama, with surveillance-like footage, very tamped-down performances and some surreal moments, which might not be to the taste of some audiences.

The ordinariness of their family life, their behavior and discussions revealing their selfishness, their refusal to look at or take responsibility for the evil in which they are participants, serves as a reminder that the potential for inhumanity can lurk in the most ordinary seeming human, and therefor we must be vigilant about “never again.” The film shows the truth of the phrase “the banality of evil” and that the possibility of evil is not something safely in the past, but within human nature still.

THE ZONE OF INTEREST, in German with English subtitles, opens Friday, Jan. 26, in theaters.

RATING: 3.5 out of 4 stars

TIGER WITHIN – Review

*Margot Josefsohn as Casey and Ed Asner as Samuel, in TIGER WITHIN. Photo Courtesy of Menemsha Films*

In TIGER WITHIN, a Holocaust survivor (Ed Asner, in his final role) befriends a homeless teen (Margot Josefsohn) in Los Angeles in what might be the ’90s. Directed by Rafal Zielinski and written by Gina Wendkos, TIGER WITHIN is a well-intentioned film, touching on antisemitism, hatred, fear, and prejudices, and highlighting the power of forgiveness and kindness.

Those good intentions, plus Ed Asner in his last big screen role, has earned TIGER WITHIN a place in several Jewish film festivals. All that is in its favor but this rambling coming-of-age film is an up-and-down experience, a film that does not always know how best to convey its message and which it sometimes does awkwardly. At times, there is a feeling that the film is not well thought-out or focused, and there are other moments that are simply awkward, even a bit squirm-inducing. Yet, the film is often rescued by fine performances by Ed Asner and young Margot Josefsohn as the homeless girl, either in their own scenes or together. There are also moments of touching humanity, some surprisingly powerful, and the teen character at the center of the story in particular has the feel of a lived experience.

The story begins “somewhere in Ohio and sometime ago” (as the on-screen titles tell us), where Casey Miller (Margot Josefsohn) is a blonde-haired teenage girl who wears heavy makeup on her large blue eyes and dresses in punk/goth style black. Casey has bounced around to various schools as her single mother has struggled to get by, and Casey feels she has to fight to defend herself against everyone. Despite her hit-first defense strategy, we sense her vulnerability, her fear, and her loneliness.

The film illustrates Casey’s inner feelings, with little doodles, presumably hers, in the margins of the screen, and sometimes covering the whole image. The illustrations are one of the film’s more effective devices, both reminding us this is a very young person and giving us insights into the inner life she hides from the world, more effectively that voice-over or dialog might have done.

On her first day at her new school, Casey is passed a note from a boy bearing a rude, suggestive message, and she reacts angrily with a string of expletives. But it is Casey, not the boy, who goes to the principal’s office, where the principal comments on her history of rebellion as he pages through her thick file. No new start here.

Later at a party, Casey dances and a skin-head boy tags her black leather jacket with a swastika. She yells at him, but he assures her it means nothing, an explanation she seems to accept – shockingly.

At home, Casey and her mother clash over school. While her mother seems to care about her daughter, she has a history of not paying close attention to what Casey does at school or even if she actually goes. Angry Casey accuses her mother of caring more about her latest, and abusive, boyfriend, who is pressuring her mother to kick the girl out. Mom decides to send Casey to her father in California, a man who she has little contact with and who now has a wife and two daughters.

At the L.A. train station, Casey keeps out of sight when her father and family first arrive, and listens as the wife, who is not thrilled to take on this rebellious girl, complaining about her. Discouraged, the teen decides she is better off on the street, with the meager funds her mother gave her for the trip. As evening approaches, she hides in a cemetery – a Jewish one as it happens. It is there that elderly Samuel (Ed Asner) finds the girl in the jacket with a swastika, curled up asleep on a grave, when he comes to the cemetery for his daily visit to his wife’s grave. Why would he befriend such a girl? That we will find out.

Naturally, Casey is suspicious of Samuel and his motives but accepts his offer of a meal and then a shower, and after several missteps, his friendship. Samuel is endlessly patient, telling her about his life, his experience surviving the Holocaust, of his lost daughters and his late wife. Gently he answers her questions, consistently demonstrates kindness, and defends and helps her when she needs it.

We don’t know how old Casey is, and her hard manner and curse-laced speech suggests someone older but as the film progresses, we begin to suspect Casey is much younger than we assumed at first. That subtle shift comes along with the budding friendship, and her growing affection for the grandfatherly Samuel.

While the dialog is sometimes awkward, and some scenes are clumsy and heavy-handed in how they deal with the film’s messages, particularly antisemitism, those missteps are often redeemed by the performances of both Ed Asner and Margot Josefsohn. Their performances are alive with human warmth, and convincing connections. There are some scene that have the potential to go very wrong – as the only work the underage Casey can find, in those moments when she takes off on her own, is in a massage parlor, when she steadfastly refuses to provide any service except with her hand. A delicate approach is required but Canadian-born director Rafal Zielinski, who is Polish-Jewish and grew up in various countries, keeps things on the right path, although at times the script takes things close to an uncomfortable edge.

Samuel is a man with a sense of humor as well as justice, and Ed Asner does a nice job as crafting the character. He seems to endless patience for a teen who is very trying at first, even elusive but whom he comes to view as a surrogate granddaughter, while she grows emotionally under his unwavering emotional support. The more Asner’s Samuel pours unconditional positive regard and gentle encouragement towards the right path, the more Casey relaxes and transforms into who she really can be. He encourages her to find her true self, her tiger within.

While Samuel is Casey’s emotional rock, Asner looks very frail at times. It works for the character, but it also tugs at our heartstrings to watch him at times. The scenes with both Asner and Josefsohn as Casey are so good. due both to Asner’s skill but also to the actors’ chemistry with Margot Josefsohn, who may be an emerging talent. Hopefully she will go on to bigger things after this role, despite the film’s shortcomings.

THE TIGER WITHIN’s chief merit is its good intentions and the performances of Ed Asner and young Margot Josefsohn. While it is far from a perfect film, it’s message of hope, forgiveness and kindness, paired with those nice performances, make this sincerely well-meant little film worthwhile for the right audience.

TIGER WITHIN opens in select theaters and video-on-demand on multiple platforms on Friday, July 7.

RATING: 2.5 out of 4 stars

MY NAME IS SARA – Review

*Zuzanna Surowy as Sara/Manya, in MY NAME IS SARA. Courtesy of Strand Releasing*

How many 13-year-olds have the self-discipline to pretend to be someone else for two years, without once revealing the truth even to those closest to her? MY NAME IS SARA is a tense historical survival drama that unfolds more like a thriller, which recounts the true story of 13-year-old Sara Goralnik who concealed her Jewish identity in Nazi-occupied Ukraine for two years, even from the Ukrainian Orthodox farmers with whom she is living.

There is a particularly timely element to this true story film as it is set in western Ukraine, part of which was in Poland when World War II started and part of which was in the Soviet Union, but all of which was occupied by Germany when the story takes place. The film not only tells Sara Goralnik’s harrowing personal story but gives us insights into the plight of Ukrainian farmers during the war, farmers who were brutalized and exploited by the occupying Nazis but also subject to raids from partisans hiding in the woods. As much as they might support the partisans goals in fighting the Nazis, the farmers faced starvation by repeated raids from both sides.

MY NAME IS SARA feels more like a thriller than a historical drama or biography, although it is also those. During World War II, many Jews tried to survive by posing as Christians, and fear of discovery gives such hidden identity stories an inherent tension, but MY NAME IS SARA is exceptional. Not only is young Sara hiding from the Nazis but she has to conceal her Jewish identify from the very family she is living with. The Ukrainian Orthodox Christian farming family is not helping her to hide – or at least not knowingly. In some ways, they were as much a threat to her safety as the Nazis occupying the nearby Ukrainian town, since they not only share their neighbors’ antisemitic attitudes but they were also driven by fear, as the Nazis brutally punish anyone sheltering Jewish refugees. The risk of discovery is ever-present and Sara has no one she can trust, yet must appear calm at all times, a challenge for anyone but all the more so for someone so young.

Sara (newcomer Zuzanna Surowy) and her family lived in Korets in the Poland when the Nazis invaded. Before the war, Korets had a large Jewish population that was well-integrated with the Polish Catholic and Orthodox Christian Ukrainian ones. As the film opens, Sara and her older brother Moishe (Konrad Cichon) are hiding in the woods, after fleeing the ghetto where their parents and two younger brothers are trapped. They are attempting to cross the border into the Soviet Union, an area the Nazis also occupy, with the goal of reaching a farm owned by an old non-Jewish woman that their parents have paid to shelter them. But as soon as they arrive, Moishe realizes they can’t stay, as the nervous woman is likely to betray them. “You would do better without me,” he tells his younger sister, noting that her appearance, with light-colored eyes and hair, makes it easier for her to pass as non-Jewish than his more obviously Jewish features do. The next morning, Sara makes the tough choice to leave while her brother sleeps.

After making her way through the woods, the hungry and tired Sara emerges in a field where an Ukrainian farmer, Ivan (Pawel Królikowski), and his son Grisha (Piotr Nerlewski) are working. She tells Ivan she is looking for work, that her name is Manya Romanchuk and she has run away from a troubled home life in Korets. The farmer eyes her with suspicion, then asks if she is Jewish, which she denies. He demands she make the sign of the cross herself as proof she is Christian. Satisfied with her response, the Ukrainians take her to the farm of Ivan’s brother Pavlo (Eryk Lubos) and his younger wife Nadya (Michalina Olszanska) where Sara can work as a nanny for their two young sons. At the farm, Sara is challenged again to prove she is not Jewish and, again, passes their tests, although her new employers still remain wary.

While Sara faces constant threat of discovery, she also learns things about her Ukrainian farmer employers that can help her. They hate the Nazi occupiers too, and are not so fond of the Russians, with memories of the Soviet famine of the 1930s lingering. She also learns that the husband and wife each have secrets, and each tries to enlist her support in their troubled marriage.

Director Steven Oritt ramps up the tension in this film in a series of nail-biting scenes, and the threat is always in our minds. The true-story is aided by the fact that Oritt interviewed the real Sara Goralnik Shapiro extensively before her death in 2018, information that David Himmelstein used in writing his script. As well as concealing her identity during the war, the real Sara also kept the secret of her war-time experience from her family until late in life. Although it is just being released now into theaters, the drama was made in 2019 with the support of Steven Spielberg’s USC Shoah Foundation and with the real Sara’s son, Mickey Shapiro, serving as executive producer. It has played several film festivals, including the 2020 Miami Jewish Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Film, and the 2019 Warsaw Jewish Film Festival, where it won the David Camera Grand Prix Award. Oritt has made a few documentaries but this is his dramatic feature film debut.

The film was shot on location in Poland with a Polish crew and with a Polish, German, Russian and Ukrainian cast, lending authenticity. It has lovely cinematography by Marian Prokop, who took advantage of the pretty, period Polish locations, aided by nice art direction. The acting is good, with young Zuzanna Surowy particularly impressive as Sara, particularly considering her lack of acting experience. Her still, sad face has a inherent underlying steel to it which serves the film well. Often when the character is asked a fraught question or faces a situation that threatens to expose her, Suwovy’s face remains still and unchanged for a beat, before she smiles and pretends to be pleased or cooperative, a choice that has the effect of making the viewer hold their breathe for a moment, increasing the tension more than one might expect. Director Oritt does a masterful job with keeping tension high overall, without ever wearing us out with the suspense.

As the story unfolds, what is most astonishing is Sara’s ability to pass as Ukrainian Orthodox Christian. Time and again, her employers test her, suspicious that she may be Jewish, asking her to cross herself, eat pork and even recite Christian prayers. Although we eventually learn the reason for her knowledge of Orthodox ways, we remain impressed that one so young can so coolly pull off the impersonation. Beyond the religious testing, there are other threats to expose her, including that the village she fled is not so far away, and she runs the risk she might encounter someone who knows her.

The film also periodically reminds us of the deadly price the Nazis imposed on those who did shelter Jews. When another Jewish girl turns up at the farm, Sara tries to help without giving herself away, another reminder of the constant danger she is in.

There is much to admire about this film but not all is perfect. Some of the exposition is unclear, and we are not entirely certain what is happening between Sara and Pavlo, although he is clearly attracted to her. The film also has the characters speak in English when they are presumably speaking in Ukrainian but uses subtitles for other languages, a choice that some viewers might find awkward.

All in all, MY NAME IS SARA is a worthy drama, an impressive true story of surviving the Holocaust, by a teen girl on her own, forced to conceal her identity and live by her wits, told with a thriller vibe, and shot on location with fine cinematography and acting.

MY NAME IS SARA, in English and Polish, German and Russian with English subtitles, opens Friday, Aug. 19, at Marcus Des Peres Cinema and other theaters.

THE TESTAMENT – JFF 2018 Review

St. Louis Jewish Film Festival
Plaza Frontenac Cinema
Tuesday, June 5 at 7pm
Austria/Israel – In English, German and Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Amichai Greenberg
Feature: 96 mins.
With introduction by Susan Balk, co-author of “Vienna’s Conscience” and Founding Director of Hate Brakers

In the taut Israeli-Austrian thriller/mystery THE TESTAMENT, Israeli historian Dr. Yoel Halberstam (Ori Pfeffer) is leading a team from the Jerusalem Holocaust Institute in high-profile court battle to preserve a site where 200 Jewish forced laborers were massacred and buried in Austria in March 1945. But the Israeli preservationists are racing a ticking clock, as the Austrian town of Lendsdorf is demanding proof of a mass grave before halting plans for a new development on the site. Halberstam must find it before the deadline set by the court. Unless the mass grave is found, the building plan will go ahead and the site will be obliterated.

The Israeli historian faces a number of problems. Witnesses to the historic events are few and, worse, no one knows the exact location of the mass grave. Several witnesses reported hearing the massacre but none can pinpoint the exact location of the mass grave. An additional problem is that an earlier attempt to bring this crime to light, one made soon after the war, resulted in the assassination of one witness, which drove the rest into hiding.

The gripping Israeli-Austrian mystery/drama THE TESTAMENT debuted at last year’s Venice Film Festival, and was well-received. Director Amichai Greenberg brings a fresh look at the Holocaust by focusing on this personal story and the questions it raises about identity.

Yoel Halberstam is a historian who has built his considerable reputation on his exacting research but despite his considerable skills, the solution to this puzzle keeps eluding him. An Orthodox Jew, Yoel lives for his work, with little time for a personal life. Yoel’s focus on his work and even his faith have narrowed his view of life and even his awareness of the modern world. Known for his passion for the truth, Yoel has devoted his life to his work, neglecting his family to the point that his wife divorced him.. Yoel lives with his elderly mother and his married sister who chides him for his neglect of his personal life. The historian struggles to make time to help his son prepare for his upcoming Bar Mitzvah but has trouble connecting with the boy.

While going through some classified testaments taken for the earlier post-war investigation, Yoel is startled to find his own mother’s name. His mother (Rivka Gur) had always refused to talk about the war, so the discovery sparks more than professional curiosity. Yoel’s hunger to know the truth leads him to use his access to restricted files to find out more, despite the ethical questions it raises. As the historian digs deeper, he discovers long-buried family secrets. The discoveries are shattering for Yoel but his compulsion to find the truth, no matter the consequences, drives him forward.

The acting is superb in this thought-provoking drama. Pfeffer does as excellent job as Yoel, wrestling with his conflicted feelings and with the mental puzzle of the mystery that confronts him. The mystery is tense and well-paced, and the plot is draws in larger issues around civilians in wartime, how war can bury secrets or leave lingering fears in survivors who are forever marked by their experience. The photography is striking, often visually beautiful. The film contrasts the modern architecture of locations against the hunt for a mystery about the past. The contrasts between the past and present world course through this exploration of truth and identity.

His discoveries during his research bring into question his assumptions about his own life and cause him to reassess it. Yoel’s mother Fanya (played well by Rivka Gur) dodges her son’s questions about the war, mostly by simply ignoring them. She’s in poor health which makes pressing her difficult, and Yoel’s frustration is palpable. While the personal crisis sends him reeling, he ultimately re-focuses on the task at hand. His research unexpectedly brings to light new information and a new view of the mystery of the mass grave that might help solve the puzzle.

THE TESTAMENT is an intriguing mystery and a different kind of Holocaust tale, as well as a thoughtful exploration of the nature of identity.

SLIFF 2017 Review – THE TESTAMENT

THE TESTAMENT will screen at Plaza Frontenac Cinema (Lindbergh Blvd. and Clayton Rd, Frontenac, MO 63131) as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. Showings are Monday, Nov. 6 at 7pm (purchase tickets HERE) and Thursday, Nov. 9 at 2:15pm (purchase tickets HERE).

In the taut Israeli-Austrian thriller/mystery THE TESTAMENT, focuses on Dr. Yoel Halberstam (Ori Pfeffer), an Israeli historian with the Jerusalem Holocaust Institute, who is leading a high-profile court battle to preserve a site in Austria where 200 Jewish forced laborers were massacred and buried in March 1945. But the Israeli team working to preserve the site are racing a ticking clock, as the Austrian town of Lendsdorf is preparing to build on the site and is demanding proof of a mass grave before halting that plan. The problem is that witnesses are few and no one knows the exact location of the mass grave. Halberstam must find it before the deadline set by the court runs out. Unless the mass grave is found, the building plan will go ahead and the site will be obliterated.

This gripping Israeli – Austrian mystery/drama THE TESTAMENT debuted at the Venice Film Festival. Halberstam is an Orthodox Jew who lives for his work, and is known for his commitment to truth and his exacting research. But the solution to this puzzle keeps eluding him. One reason is that an earlier attempt to bring this crime to light, one made soon after the war, resulted in the assassination of one witness, and the rest have gone into hiding. While going through some classified testaments taken for that earlier investigation, Halberstam is startled to find his own mother’s name.

His mother (Rivka Gur) had always refused to talk about the war and a drive to know the truth leads Yoel to use his access to restricted files to find out more, despite the ethical questions raised. As the historian digs deeper, he discovers his mother is not who they always believed she was. The discovery is shattering for her son and the secret leads him to questions nearly everything about his life. Still, Yoel’s compulsion to find the truth has, no matter the consequences, unexpectedly brings new information and a new view of the mystery of the mass grave that might help solve the puzzle.

Director Amichai Greenberg brings a fresh look at the Holocaust by focusing on this personal story and raising questions about identity. The mystery is tense and well-paced, and woven in well with an exploration of matters of identity, secrets buried in wartime, and lingering fears of survivors who are forever marked by their experience. The photography is striking, often visually beautiful, and the film contrasts modern architecture of locations against a mystery about the past. The contrasts between the past and present world course through this exploration of truth and identity.

Yoel’s focus on his work and even his Orthodox faith have narrowed his view of life and even his awareness of the modern world. Known for his passion for the truth, Yoel has devoted his life to his work, neglecting his family to the point that his wife divorced him. Yoel lives with his elderly mother and his married sister who chides him for his neglect of his personal life. The historian struggles to make time to help his son prepare for his upcoming Bar Mitzvah but has trouble connecting with the boy.

The acting is superb in this thought-provoking drama. Pfeffer does as excellent job as Yoel, wrestling with his conflicted feelings and with the mental puzzle of the mystery that confronts him. Yoel’s mother Fanya, played well by Rivka Gur, dodges her son’s questions about the war, mostly by simply ignoring them. She’s in poor health which makes pressing her difficult, and Yoel’s frustration is palpable.

His discovery about his mother brings into question his assumptions about his own identity and causes him to reassess his personal life. While the personal crisis sends him reeling, he ultimately must re-focuses on the task at hand.

THE TESTAMENT is an intriguing mystery and a different kind of Holocaust tale, as well as a thoughtful exploration of the nature of identity.

SLIFF 2017 Review – 1945

1945 will screen at Plaza Frontenac Cinema (Lindbergh Blvd. and Clayton Rd, Frontenac, MO 63131) as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. Showings are Sunday, Nov. 5 at 5pm (purchase tickets HERE) and Tuesday, Nov. 7 at 4:30pm (purchase tickets HERE).

1945 is a haunting Hungarian drama from director Ferenc Torok that takes place in a small Hungarian village shortly after the end of World War II. It is a tale of guilt and greed, revealing what was done to the Jewish population by ordinary citizens during the war.

The arrival of two men dressed in black, who appear to be Jewish, grips this small rural town with fear and guilt. The Town Clerk, Istvan Szentes (Peter Rudolf), a prosperous politician who seems more like the town’s mayor, is preparing for his son Arpad’s (Bence Tasnadi) wedding that afternoon. But this festive occasion is disrupted when he gets word from the train station master (Istvan Znamenak) about the arrival of the two men, one old (Ivan Angelus) and one young (Marcell Nagy), who have arrived with two large boxes labeled perfumes and cosmetics. The name of the older man, Herman Samuel, does not match any of the town’s Jewish former residents and no one recognizes the newcomers. Nonetheless, the news shocks the politician into a panicked frenzy of guilty activity. Other villagers are alarmed too, gripped with either fear, guilt or overwhelming remorse. Everyone is asking, will more Jews arrive?

Director Torok’s film is based on the lauded short story “Homecoming” by Gabor T. Szanto. But the story reflects what happened in many places during the war, spotlighting the role human greed played in what happened to Jewish families throughout Nazi-occupied Europe. Torok treats this story like a mystery, slowly uncovering the rottenness beneath the village’s quaint rustic veneer. The plot reveals the treachery and collusion among these villagers, particularly the Town Clerk, that exploited the plight of the Jews for their own material gain during the war, an ugly tale that was repeated throughout Hungary, and even Europe. As the plot slowly reveals, these townspeople did more than simply stand by as their Jewish neighbors were deported to concentration camps.

Tension is high in this suspenseful and beautifully photographed black-and-white drama. Director Torok handles the story brilliantly, teasing us as he reveals horrifying tidbits of information. The gorgeous black-and-white imagery captures just the right for the tone of this period tale, and helps boost its feeling of foreboding.

The two men at the center of this frenzy, say nothing, except to arrange transport of the two boxes to town. Wary of what may happen, the draftsman hauling the boxes by his horse-drawn cart asks for payment in advance. The old man shoots him a sad look but says nothing as he pays.

As the two strangers walk behind the cart on its slow progress towards the town, word of their arrival spreads through the village, even upending preparations under way for the big wedding and feast to follow. Everyone seems worried, and questions abound. Who are these men?Are they the heirs? Did they purchase the property from the Jews who were deported? Most importantly, will the Jews want to take their property back?

While the Town Clerk obsesses about the past, an uncertain future looms unnoticed. The town is occupied by the Russian army but the Town Clerk seems only mildly interested in the upcoming election, one which will sweep the communists into power and do more to transform the village’s comfortable traditional life.

Although the clerk seems to have profited the most, everyone in town seems to bear some guilt in these evil deeds. Some are defiant in their claims to stolen property but other are wracked with remorse over the evil done. None does anything to right the wrongs done. Even the priest (Bela Gados) seems willing to ignore the past.

The acting is excellent, with actors peeling back the layers of complex relationships built on evil deeds, which begin to crumble as facts and truth are forced to the surface. Peter Rudolf particularly good as the oily, bullying Town Clerk, as is Jozsef Szarvas as his hard-drinking lackey, who is crushed by his regrets. Agi Szirtes also is good as his wife, seized with fear she will lost the house she lives in, still surrounded by the possessions of its Jewish former owner. But perhaps the most striking, moving performance is Ivan Angelus as the older Jewish man, in which he conveys volumes of meaning and feeling without a single word.

Director Tobok plays a cat-and-mouse game with the audience, keeping us off-balance until the end. 1945 is a brilliantly made film, and powerful, moving reminder of the evil that can take place under cover of wartime and the power of greed.

DENIAL (2016) – Review

With the arrival of Fall and Winter comes a return to more serious subject matter at movie theatres, and another look at events occurring during World War II. However, this new release really addresses the legacy of those events, a look back at history and those who document it. And the film is, in many ways, a courtroom thriller set in the British legal system, where the powdered wigs aren’t the only thing different from the US legal proceedings. However, the person on trial there is from the states, a professor suddenly burdened with presenting proof of one of the past century’s greatest tragedies, all at the beginning of this relatively new century. Yes, this WW II-themed docudrama take place less than twenty years ago, 50 years after the end of the war, when this woman accused must defend her belief that her accuser is in DENIAL.

The woman in question is Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz), a professor of Jewish history at Atlanta’s Emory University. When we meet her in the mid 1990’s, she is preparing to conduct a lecture about the Holocaust to a packed auditorium of students. Unknown to her, several men near the back entrance are setting up a video camera. They are led by British author and self-described historian David Irving (Timothy Spall). When Lipstadt concludes her lecture and takes questions from the audience, Irving identifies himself and confronts her about Lipstadt’s recent book in which he is profiled, “Denying the Holocaust”. He challenges her to a debate. When she dismisses him, Irving begins handing out pamphlets and fliers to the stunned students. Later, in 1996, Lipstadt is shocked to receive legal papers. Irving is suing her and her publisher, Penguin Books, in an English court for libel, saying his professional reputation as been damaged by being labeled a Holocaust denier. She begins to try to navigate the unfamiliar legal system, on in which she must prove her innocence (here that burden of proof is on the accuser). Traveling to London, Lipstadt engages a legal team led by Anthony Julius (Andrew Scott), with barrister Richard Rampton (Tom Wilkinson) to represent the defense in court. Over the next months Lipstadt raises the needed research funds which enable them to get a tour conducted by architect/ historian Professor Robert Jan van der Pelt of the camps at Auschwitz. As the trial date nears, they learn that Irving will be representing himself. The team begins a legal strategy, arguing to have the case decided by a lone judge, Sir Charles Gray (Alex Jennings). But, much to Lipstadt’s dismay, she is advised not to testify and not call several camp survivors as witnesses. Far more is at stake than monetary damages, the door may be opened for a large-scale re-writing of history.

As the audience surrogate (for the non-Brits), Weisz delivers a strong, but humanizing performance. Lipstadt is most definitely the hero of the tale, and she shows us her courage and determination, but also the trepidation. That steadfast stance of stone often returns to clay, but she never backs down. Weisz conveys her heartbreak and frustration over not testifying and having to turn away passionate survivors. It’s a nuanced performance worthy of an Oscar nom, as are her main three male co-stars (it’s a shame that Supporting Actor is limited to five). A film’s got to have a strong villain, and Spall is absolutely spellbinding as the man facing Weisz in court. He scowls from the sidelines in the opening lecture ambush, then strikes from afar, a spider wrapping Weisz in his web. Yes Spall shows him as a bully, but he lets us peer behind the curtain at a man whose ego seems to be boundless (look at all those journals). The money flow from the loss of his publishing ties wounds him, but Spall portrays, with his “I’m really a nice, lil’ guy” manner”, wants desperately to be respected as an academic, someone to be studied and celebrated. His courtroom adversary is the always remarkable Wilkinson as a true legal “pitbull”, but still retaining a child’s curiosity. It’s a true balancing act, as Rampton tries to keep focused on the trial, as the horrors of history tears at his psyche. Lipstadt is often aggravated by his lack of emotion at the camp site, but Wilkinson shows us a man who must keep his anguish buried. Much like the talented Andrew Scott, a superb Moriarty on TV’s “Sherlock”, he must hide his feelings, but it’s beneath a dour expression. Julius never wants his team to settle in and become over-confident. He knows their cause is noble, but he never assumes that the courts will be swayed easily, an attitude he tries to instill in Lipstadt. Kudos to Jennings who make the judge a mysterious, inscrutable figure, a stance that makes his late in the trial observation the legal version of a live grenade.

Director Mick Jackson returns from “TV town” with an assured sense of pace and storytelling style. During the camp tour he uses some stylized visuals and editing (flashes of suffering and writhing ghosts), but shoots the courtroom as a modern-day battle arena with barristers as gladiators, reminding us of Hitchcock’s WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION. The camera smoothly glides from actor to actor, knowing just when to lock down for impact, particularly for the verbal showdown between Irving and Rampton. It’s a sequence that crackles with energy, thanks in large part to the riveting screenplay by David Hare. There may not be enough scenes of the legal team formulating a plan, and too many of Lipstadt pacing in her posh hotel suite, but the final act and denouncement help balance the story, one so very recent. Thanks to the incredible cast, DENIAL is a compelling, riveting look at history and its various interpreters.
4 Out of 5

DENIAL opens everywhere and screens exclusively in the St. Louis area at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Cinemas

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