The Boy in the Striped Pajamas marks one of the most unsettling films to emerge in quite some time. Certainly that response might seem appropriate for any film that pertains thematically to a subject as emotionally challenging as the Holocaust, but writer-director Mark Herman's fictional story -- adapted from John Boyne's 2005 novel of the same name -- feels uncomfortable in an ill-advised way. A treatment of Holocaust-related discoveries shot through the eyes of an eight-year-old boy, it presents Nazi horror after Nazi horror, tempered by the irony of an innocent's continual misunderstandings. That alone is an interesting conceit and suggests dramatic promise...
Released:
2008
Rated:
PG-13
Length:
95 mins