It always feels like it’s keeping the Holocaust at arm’s length, not because it’s trying to cover up those horrors, but because it wants to remain tethered to the Żabińskas’ perspective. On paper, The Zookeeper’s Wife is a good movie, but unfortunately, Caro never really makes the picture come alive. I also like that it’s a film directed by a woman, written by a woman ( Angela Workman), and features a woman as the hero. There’s nothing particularly bad about The Zookeeper’s Wife, and it feels incredibly well-intentioned. However, as the war continues, their marriage becomes frayed as Antonina tries to manipulate German officer Lutz Heck ( Daniel Brühl) and Jan joins the resistance movement. Although their effort to protect Jews begins with just a few family friends, it soon expands to bring in children and others who are trying to escape from the ghetto and ultimately the reach of the Third Reich.
#Rating the zookeepers wife movie#
While the film occasionally glimpses at the darkness the Jews had to face in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, the movie largely focuses on the benevolence of its title character and her husband.īased on the true story of Antonina Żabińska ( Jessica Chastain) and her husband Jan ( Johan Heldenbergh), the film follows the Żabińskas as they protect Jews in their bombed-out zoo in Warsaw, Poland during the Nazi occupation. The problem the film continues to run into is that it never really wants to reach for those risks or show the dangers. While present-day America is nowhere near Nazi Germany (contrary to what Tim Allen says), a story like the one presented in The Zookeeper’s Wife is always important: we must find a way to protect others even if it’s at great risk to ourselves. It’s a film that’s about people who could have gone about their business taking a risk to protect the persecuted. What makes the film worthwhile, despite its flaws, are those scenes of human and animal desperation that encapsulate the horrors of war.In some ways, Niki Caro’s The Zookeeper’s Wife feels incredibly timely. As a result, the tension that should drive The Zookeeper’s Wife ebbs away in boilerplate storytelling. Brühl brings complexity to the role until the script reduces him to villainous caricature. Antonina submits to his flirtations to deflect his suspicions. When Hitler’s favorite zoologist, Lutz Heck ( Inglourious Basterds‘ Daniel Brühl), comes sniffing around. They risk their lives to smuggle Jews out of the Warsaw ghetto in garbage trucks and hide them in the zoo’s underground tunnels and cages, all under the eyes of occupying soldiers.
“You look in their eyes,” she says, “and you know exactly what is in their hearts.” The compassion of the Zabinskas is never in doubt. Antonina admits it’s easier for her to trust animals. Oddly, it’s the humanism of Antonina and Jan, whose heroic efforts helped save nearly 300 Jews, that fails to emerge with equal force. Meet the Beatle: A Guide to Ringo Starr's Solo Career in 20 Songs Caro brings astonishing power to a bombing raid on the zoo that panics the animals, many of whom are later shot by German soldiers in scenes of devastating terror.
The serpent in this Eden slithers in with the Nazis. Antonia’s respect for animal life is boundless she even lets her young son sleep with lion cubs. Later, we watch her give CPR to a choking baby elephant with its mother ready to strike if anyone does her calf harm. In the early scenes, before the hostilities, Caro’s camera follows Antonia’s morning ritual of riding her bicycle around the lovely art-nouveau zoo, feeding the animals and talking to them like a female Dr. Though her Polish accent owes too much to Meryl Streep’s Eastern European lilt from Sophie’s Choice, Chastain is radiant as Antonina Zabinska, the wife of a zoopkeeper named Jan (Johan Heldenbergh). And in Jessica Chastain, Caro finds an actress ready to use everything she’s got to bring the title role to life. It’s fortunate that the stellar director Niki Caro ( Whale Rider) rarely lets the action go slack, using striking visuals that express so much more than the clunky verbiage. What a shame then, that in adapting the book by Diane Ackerman, screenwriter Angela Workman lets the dialogue run to the blandest of bromides. It’s an incredible true story, how a Polish couple sheltered Jews during WWII in their abandoned zoo in Warsaw.
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