The Boy In The Striped Pajamas (12A, 95 mins)
Stars: Asa Butterfield, Jack Scanlon, Vera Farmiga, David Thewlis, Amber Beattie, Rupert Friend, Cara Horgan, Sheila Hancock, David Heyman
Directed by Mark Herman
BASED on a best-selling novel by John Boyne, The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas relives the horrors of World War II from the perspective of an eight-year-old German tyke, who is blissfully unaware of the vital role played by his Nazi officer father in the unfolding tragedy.
Bruno (Asa Butterfield) moves to a lonely life far away from the city and his friends when his commandant father (David Thewlis) is promoted.
In the woods, he stumbles upon a farm, and a young boy in striped pyjamas called Shmuel (Jack Scanlon).
Separated by a barbed-wire fence, the two boys become friends, until Bruno learns the truth: that Shmuel is a Jew and the farm is actually a concentration camp under the control of his father.
The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas refracts the unimaginable suffering and tragedy of the Holocaust through the prism of one family's experiences.
Butterfield and Scanlon deliver remarkably natural performances as the friends, and their scenes at the wire fence are sensitively handled by director Mark Herman, who lulls us into a false sense of security before a finale that doesn't quite deliver a knock-out emotional blow.
