Producers: Todd Lieberman, David Hoberman and R.J. Palacio Director: Marc Forster Screenplay: Mark Bomback Cast: Ariela Glaser, Orlando Schwerdt, Bryce Gheisar, Gillian Anderson, Helen Mirren, Jem Matthews, Olivia Ross, Ishai Golan, Jo Stone-Fewings, Patsy Ferran, Stuart McQuarrie and Philip Lenkowsky Distributor: Lionsgate
Grade: C+
Films that try to treat the Holocaust in a way appropriate for young viewers don’t have a great track record, and Marc Forster’s is no exception. “White Bird” is handsomely mounted and earnest but stolid and sentimental, despite a fine cast and laudable goals.
It’s tangentially related to Stephen Chbosky’s 2017 film “Wonder,” about Auggie (Jacob Tremblay), a young boy bullied at school by a nasty classmate, Julian (Bryce Gheisar). Based on a 2012 YA novel by R.J. Palacio and starring Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson as Auggie’s parents, “Wonder” became a surprise hit. This film is adapted from Palacio’s 2019 graphic novel “White Bird: A Wonder Story,” but is directed by Forster, whose past efforts range from “Finding Neverland” and “Christopher Robin” on one hand to “Quantum of Solace” and “World War Z” on the other. Obviously he’s working in his softer mode here.
The sole holdover character from “Wonder” is Gheisar’s Julian, who’s transferred to a new school, still smarting over being expelled over his bullying of Auggie, and has decided to keep a low profile and make no waves, avoiding both the big man on campus (Teagan Booth) who invites him to join his clique and the sad girl (Priya Ghotane) relegated to eating lunch alone. Returning home after his first day, he’s surprised to find his Grandmère Sara (Helen Mirren), a famous painter who’s flown in from Paris for a New York exhibition. Most of the film is devoted to her telling Julian about her experience during World War II.
As young Sara (Ariella Glaser), the elderly but still spry woman explains, she was living in Alsace with her parents Rose (Olivia Ross) and Max (Ishai Golan) when Hitler rose to power in Germany. Max and Rose were debating whether the family should flee when France was taken, but they procrastinated until it was too late and Alsace fell under Nazi occupation. At her school Sara, an aspiring artist, found herself demeaned as a Jew by classmates like Vincent (Jem Matthews), an anti-Semite whom she’d been infatuated with until he showed his pro-Nazi colors.
In time the occupiers began rounding up the Jews for transport to the east, Sara’s parents among them. The Jewish students were targets as well, and though the headmaster Pastor Luc (Stuart McQuarrie) and teachers like Mlle Petitjean (Patsy Ferran) tried to protect them, Vincent pointed them out to the Nazi soldiers. Only Sara managed to escape.
She would have been found quickly were it not for the intervention of Julien Beaumier (Orlando Schwerdt), a classmate crippled by polio who’d been treated as an outcast by his fellow students, even Sara, because of his use of a crutch. He took her to his family’s farm, where his parents Vivienne (Gillian Anderson) and Jean Paul (Jo Stone-Fewings) were more than willing to shelter her. But she had to remain hidden in their barn, where Julien, a mechanically adept kid who helped the projectionist, a resistance fighter, in the local cinema, lightened her days with films and companionship. Over time they grew very close.
But their safety would not last. Jem, who’d become part of a Nazi youth group outfitted with uniform and rifle (think Rolf Gruber from “The Sound of Music” without the sweet tenor), grew suspicious about the Beaumiers and found Sara in their barn, chasing her into the woods and threatening to kill her. Meanwhile as a cripple Julien was rounded up with other “defectives” for transport to a “medical” facility as Vivienne and Jean Paul struggled to raise money to secure his release by bribing his captors. The fates of the two youngsters are juxtaposed in a finale that aims for a degree of excitement somewhat at odd with the somber tone, particularly with respect to Vincent’s end.
And there’s a coda set in the present, of course, in which Grandmère reiterates in her introduction to the exhibition a message she’s been delivering to Julian repeatedly in her periodic voice-over to the wartime flashbacks—the importance of kindness toward others, especially those different from oneself. And Julian, of course, must decide whether to embrace that message when he returns to his new school. Given the historical horrors which serve as the background to the story, that message can feel awfully sanitized, even when directed at a young audience.
“White Bird” clearly has its heart in the right place, Forster directs it smoothly, and the cast all give committed, if sometimes undernourished, performances. Filmed in the Czech Republic, it features attractive widescreen visuals, with an elegant production design by Jennifer Williams and lustrous cinematography by Matthias Konigswieser. Despite the constant shifts between past and present, Matt Chesse’s editing keeps the narrative clear, though at the cost of deliberate pacing, but Thomas Newman’s score can go seriously saccharine.
In the end, though, this is a movie more notable for good intentions than genuine dramatic depth in dealing with one of the most grotesque episodes in human history.