Music was his passion. Survival was his instinct.

Rating: 7/10 (29 May 2003)

"The Pianist" is doubtless well crafted and technically and artistically sound albeit naive and conventional. The film parses into one hour of a stereotypical and exploitive regurgitation of the horrors of the Nazi reign over the Warsaw ghetto, where every German soldier is more evil than Satan and every Jew a pathetic victim, and one hour of Brody living like a rat foraging for sustenance amid the Warsaw ruination. Only in the very end does the film introduce a bit of irony and a sympathetic Nazi after countless missed opportunities to breath something fresh into what is just another in a very long list of films about the infamous ghetto (Families torn apart, summary executions, etc.). Brody delivers a fine performance as a pianist and the film's centerpiece but is not required to perform the range of emotion deserving of a little gold statuette. Overall, the film is worthwhile but shows us nothing new and exploits rather than honors the memory of those Polish Jews who died in the conflict. "The Pianist" will play best with those who have not yet had their fill of Warsaw ghetto films. (B)