Emotional journey

Rating: 7/10 (8 December 2014)

An emotional journey.
Set in Germany shortly before and during World War 2, the movie examines the extremes of human nature - intolerance and kindness - as seen through a child's eyes. Very moving at times.
Good performances all round. Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson provide the star power and are solid in their performances. However it is 12/13-year old Sophie Nelisse, in the lead role, who steals the show. Great performance, especially for someone so young.
Not a perfect movie, however. The plot seemed quite trite at times. The holocaust / Nazi persecution of Jews theme, which seemed to be the main focus of the movie, gets watered down and does not feature in the conclusion. In fact, the conclusion just seemed tacked on and unrelated to the movie.
In addition, the narration by Death seemed unnecessary and quite lame. Really didn't see the point of it, especially as narration is supposed to give a movie direction and add useful information. This did none of that.
One of the problems could be that the movie was made so that children could see it (it has only a PG age restriction in Australia). This prevented the director from making a movie that was too gritty, realistic or confrontational in its themes.