The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008)

(Lots of spoilers ahead, since the problem I had with it was with the ending.) This movie was nearly one of the very best. The young actor playing the German kid had some great dialogue to work with, but then on top of it just did a very good job acting it as well. The dialogue was intelligent, and it was chilling to see the family and society trying so desperately to poison the boy's mind toward the Jews. So why the low rating? Because the ending made everything fall apart. At the end of the story, the German boy decides it would be a great adventure to help his Jewish friend look for his father in the concentration camp. There's not much sacrifice here - the boy has almost no idea what he's getting into, he just thinks it would a great adventure. In the end, both boys are rounded up along with other men from the same hut, and burned en masse. The problem with this is that the tragedy becomes that of the German boy. The question is "How could something so terrible happen to that little boy?" That shouldn't be the question. The question should be, "How could anything so terrible happen to all those people?" The elevation and emphasis of the tragedy of the German's death made all of the other deaths trivial in comparison. If the boy had been sacrificially making the decision to give his life with or for his friend, that would be one thing - a tale of redemption instead of pointlessness. If the emphasis was on the parents and how their brutality came back on their own heads, it could be a very powerful film. But the story was mostly confined to being told by the young boy and through his eyes, indicating that it was he we should be most empathetic towards, rather than his parents, who were clearly secondary characters.

Overall, a brilliantly shot movie that made one very fatal (literally) error at the end of the story that undercut the entire thing. With just a bit more emphasis on the parents, or a bit more understanding on behalf of the child, it could have been a brilliant movie that I could have praised. But its senseless ending made me angry - not at the fact of injustice, but at the fact that only the German boy's injustice mattered. Very disappointing. That terrible, terrible misstep makes the entire film a disastrous undertaking. 1.5 stars.