this film is so unbelievable it is almost a comedy.

Rating: 1/10 (15 July 2009)

This is the 'so-sad', so impossible to believe tale of a family living next door to a Concentration camp during World War 2. & of the strange friendship of two 8 year old boys, one the Commandants son & the other a sad eyed Jewish boy.
In the late 1930's & early 1940's Hollywood made many films about Nazi Germany & Concentration camps, at that time we did not know of the extent of what was going on, SO the studios made propaganda films such as.THE MORTAL STORM, SO ENDS OUR NIGHT,ESCAPE & WATCH ON THE RHINE (just to name 4) (these are all very good movies), they were pure Hollywood fiction made on studio or back lot sets.They and all the others were more believable than this travesty.
I did not believe that any of them were German,I saw English actors playing Germans etc. The 2 known stars, usually give top notch performances.
David Thewlis as the commandant is not the least bit effective. Vera Farmiga as his wife is equally ineffective. The two boys played by Asa Butterfield & Jack Scanlon are cute, but seem more like todays 8 year 'olds'. The only believable role was old time actor Richard Johnson as Grandpa,he at least knew how to do his character.
Mark Herman wrote the screenplay taken from a novel by John Byrne, he also directed this mess.
The movie was made in Hungary,There was nothing believable about this film in any department.
The ending is supposed to be tragic & sad, if so, how come I was just happy that this bore of a film was over with
Ratings: * (out of 4) 25 points(out of 100) IMDb 1 (out of 4)