The Zookeeper’s Wife is a film which comes directed by Niki Caro. It stars Jessica Chastain, Johan Heldenbergh, Daniel Brühl and Timothy Radford. The film is about the people who live in a zoo in Poland during the German invasion. The zoo acted as a sort of hiding area for Jews who were being persecuted during the time of the war by the Nazi’s.
In going to see this film I felt some slightly mixed feelings about being excited or even interested to see it. On one hand the film stars Jessica Chastain, who I find to be excellent in so many things lately and I adored her performance in her recent work with Miss Sloane. It’s also got Daniel Brühl who is also a great actor. On the other hand, it’s a World War II film, which lately has been one of my least favourite genre of films to see due to a lot of political messaging and I feel I have been saturated with tales of the jewish genocide during the war, the events are however horrible. I find these films better to watch when I’m feeling like watching something educational rather than something entertaining.
The production value is really good in this film. The only recent film in a similar period that I remember was Allied. Allied was a much better looking film with some very attractive sets and costumes. The Zookeeper’s Wife, is well done, but didn’t feel as special or as fun as Allied, however, it’s I think more educational and is more focused on its historical points.
As a historical film, I can’t say how accurate it is for the incidents at the zoo. It does however present to its audience a very strong message. I felt all the horrors of the war from watching this. The message comes accross very strongly, by the end of the first hour though, I felt I had gotten the point. The next hour of the film was a bit of overkill of the core message about the Jews being improsined by the Nazi’s. But it was the drama between Jessica Chastain’s Antonia and Daniel Bruhl’s Lutz which kind of kept things interesting.
Overall this is a decent histocial film which has a high amount of education value for those interested in the period. The actors are great, the script well written and the sets and outfits are all well done. It does however offer little entertainment, sure there’s some drama in there, but I wouldn’t call The Zookeeper’s Wife anything cheerful or something to go see for a fun night out.
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