I do not know

Rating: 8/10 (11 December 2009)

This is a brilliant adaptation of a compelling book. The movie contains all the key elements of the book, down to the point that from the very beginning I was haunted by the ending. The story telling is not understated but stated, and the musical score evocative. The result is engrossing.
However, having relived the story twice, I am not so sure. The writer, John Boyne, was born in 1971 in Dublin. This is a confection, not just in the sense of being a wonderful piece of craft, but being sweet, or more correctly bitter sweet. But is it also a contrived confection? Much of the work on the holocaust has been important because it opens us up to new perspectives and teaches us key moral lessons. But repetition dulls even the sharpest of scalpels. At times there was a nagging sense that I was being tunneled along a well trodden road.