What a horrible, horrible movie!

Rating: 2/10 (13 September 2009)

I'm amazed that I can find nothing but praise for this film on this board! It was incredibly well made, yes, and up until the end I thought it was one I would really like. It was touching, effective, and seemed sweet and (as much as possible with Holocaust themes) family-themed and appropriate. But the ending was one of the most horrible I have ever seen and made it so I would never, ever recommend this film to anyone! Without giving any distinct spoilers, let me just say that we all watched in horror as the worst imaginable thing happened. And then there was nothing to justify it. If we had seen remorse on the part of the father, and been given the impression that maybe this horror touching him personally would be a life-changer and lead him to rethink what he was doing at the camp, the ending might have been somewhat justified. If we had seen a similar revelation in the sister, who was starting to associate with the Nazi ideology, that, too, would have helped.
Instead, we see the mother sobbing wretchedly, completely broken -- but then, she was already horrified at what was going on and didn't need to be taught a lesson. And we see the father frantically searching for Bruno, but we have no idea of his emotions when he realizes what happened. Will he rethink his life? Or will he fit this into his existing mindset, blaming the Jews for what happened, and using it as a reason to kill more and more of them? There was no conclusion; nothing was wrapped up at the end. Viewers are left with a sense of horror, nausea and depression. There was little warning of this, as the rest of the movie was really good and the previews didn't warn of the atrocity in store. The DVD cover touts the fact that this was by the same studio as "La Vita e Bella" (Life is Beautiful), which is misleading to a fault, as the two cannot be compared--La Vita e Bella was tragic, too, but it ended on a hopeful note instead of total depression.
So what was the point of this movie? What was the message? That the Holocaust was horrible? Yeah, I'm pretty sure we all knew that already.
There's enough to be depressed about in this world right now; I don't think we need our souls completely driven into the ground. Unless you enjoy horrors or being completely depressed, I wouldn't recommend "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" to anyone!