The Zookeeper's Wife (2017)

This story, about the couple who saved hundreds Jews from the Nazis by hiding them in their Warsaw zoo after the invasion of Poland, is at first beautiful and then wrenching. The husband Jan does as much as the wife, but I suppose the filmmakers kept the title from the best-selling nonfiction book that Diane Ackerman (Snow Flower and the Secret Fan was her second produced screenplay and this is her third) adapted from Antonina Zabinski's diary. Jessica Chastian (last blogged for The Martian) is poignant as Antonina, affecting a Polish accent for the role. I'm not sure what kind of accent the wonderful Johan Heldenbergh (most recently in The Broken Circle Breakdown, for which he won several awards) is using, because he was born in Belgium. Some have taken issue with the manner of speaking used by both. Daniel Brühl (last in these pages for Burnt) is an actual German (apparently he taught Chastain German swear words between takes) so he sounds just right as the Nazi Heck. Iddo Goldberg (I saw some of his 31 episodes of Secret Diary of a Call Girl after I failed to mention him in Defiance) is Israeli, but that fits his character Fraenkel. Whatever accents they use, the acting is first rate for all.

Niki Caro (most recently helmed McFarland, USA) directs, keeping emotions high, and adding lovely visuals thanks to cinematographer Andrij Parekh (shot Half Nelson (2006), Sugar, Cold Souls, Blue Valentine, It's Kind of a Funny Story, and Dark Horse, to name a few).

Antonina's pretty dresses and stacked heel shoes that she wears to tend the animals (!) are credited to costume designer Bina Daigeler (worked on All About My Mother (1999), Volver (2006), Biutiful, Only Lovers Left Alive, and more).

The pretty music by Harry Gregson-Williams (last scored The Martian) can be streamed from this link.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are not fans, averaging 60% but its audiences are fonder at 79. Jack and I liked it.

Milestone alert! I have now summarized 950 movies (19 of them I saw before that date) on the blog since I began writing it on September 3, 2008. There is an alphabetized index (a link to it is on the right side of every page) so you can look up movies by title.