More about The Boy In The Striped Pajamas
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas Review
By Sheri Linden
Los Angeles Times
Excerpt
November 7, 2008
Writer-director Mark Herman took on tough material when he chose to adapt "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas." The 2006 young adult novel by John Boyne cleaves to a young boy's point of view -- and the boy's unlikely friendship with a concentration camp inmate -- to construct an allegory about the Holocaust.
Having overheard grown-up conversations, the boy refers to Auschwitz as "Out-With" and the Fuehrer as "the Fury," devices that the film cannot depend upon. Translating this dark fable to the screen, Herman for the most part maintains the book's oversimplification of historical events, but he nonetheless crafts an affecting drama that refuses to soft-pedal its harrowing conclusion.
As the privileged 8-year-old protagonist, Asa Butterfield is innocent but never cutesy, self-centered but possessed of a restless, searching spirit. Bruno is not pleased about having to leave Berlin and "the best house ever" for an indefinite stay somewhere in the country...
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