Potentially good, but over-hyped.

Rating: 5/10 (15 August 2009)

The only reason people feel this movie is powerful is because the kids die off in the end, which is an unusual thing in movies, it plays on people's soft spot for innocent children. They amplify the dramatic-ism of the shock of their death with that slow track out of the gas chamber, but provide no aftermath? The last shot of the mother is of her crying hysterically, which she obviously would be, but what does she do as a result? -Same thing with the father, he realises what has happened and screams out "Bruno!" in shock and horror - but what becomes of his duty at the camp? on his viewpoint of the war?
They didn't even have the opportunity to see what Bruno thought of the conflict with the Jews, firstly because he didn't tell them, and secondly because they didn't even know that he had a friend at the camp. In their mind their child would have just wandered off, found the camp, dug in and got himself killed. They didn't establish any moment where their son's actions had influenced their view on the war.
Also, there were central characters who played needless roles in the movie, such as the young blond soldier, who's ultimate purpose in the story it seems, was to discipline Shmuel. This, the father could have done. They also made it look like something would happen between him and the girl, which nothing did, redefining his pointlessness. Most of his scenes made little or no contribution to the narrative.
Now, I haven't read the book. I'm sure there were deeper explanations to some of these points, but this was a movie adaptation - so as that, I feel that although it had potential to be great, it left much to be desired.