The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

Name: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
Director: Mark Herman
Released: 2008

Mark Herman

2008

Synopsis

When his family moves from their home in Berlin to a strange new house in Poland, young Bruno befriends Shmuel, a boy who lives on the other side of the fence where everyone seems to be wearing striped pajamas. Unaware of Shmuel's fate as a Jewish prisoner or the role his own Nazi father plays in his imprisonment, Bruno embarks on a dangerous journey inside the camp's walls.

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Cast

Asa ButterfieldBruno Hoess
Jack ScanlonShmuel
Vera FarmigaElsa Hoess
David ThewlisRalf Hoess
Rupert FriendLieutenant Kurt Kotler
David HaymanPavel
Sheila HancockGrandma Nathalie
Cara HorganMaria
Richard JohnsonGrandpa
Amber BeattieGretel Hoess

Recommendations

88
Chicago Sun-Times
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is not only about Germany during the war, although the story it tells is heartbreaking in more than one way. It is about a value system that survives like a virus.
83
The A.V. Club
The film has any number of chances to exploit the setting and Butterfield's wide-eyed innocence, but instead, it mines a vast, eerie tension by keeping both boys in the dark.
80
The Hollywood Reporter
Boyne's tale is starkly cautionary, and writer-director Herman handles a difficult topic with great sensitivity, drawing splendid performances from his young actors with David Thewlis and Vera Farmiga and the other grown-ups reliably efficient.
80
Variety
Opening half-hour has some of the best stuff in the movie, walking a precarious line between black irony and showing the war from a totally German viewpoint, without tipping over into gallows humor or parody.
80
Village Voice
In adapting Irishman John Boyne's acclaimed young-adult novel, writer-director Mark Herman (Little Voice) draws beautifully modulated performances from his two child actors, who navigate a full range of emotions from wonder to betrayal to guilt.
75
Philadelphia Inquirer
In key ways, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is like Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth": a child, caught in the waking nightmare of one of history's ugliest times, confronting the horrors of a grown-up world, and dealing with them as best he, or she, can.
70
Los Angeles Times
The film's two levels -- metaphoric and nitty-gritty -- don't mesh until the devastation of the closing sequence, which both indulges in and transcends melodrama.
63
ReelViews
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas should be heartbreaking, but it isn't. The muted quality of its impact is the result of narrative shortcuts and a desire to keep the images from being too startling.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

Synopsis

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Cast

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