The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas) Reviews
November 7, 2008
It reeks of self-righteousness.
November 7, 2008
See the Holocaust trivialized, glossed over, kitsched up, commercially exploited and hijacked for a tragedy about a Nazi family. Better yet and in all sincerity: don't.
Original Score: 1.5/5
November 7, 2008
Yet another attempt to revisit a sorrowful event in history that should never be forgotten or used for entertainment.
November 7, 2008
It sounds ridiculous, and yet thanks to a remarkable concatenation of talent, it's horrifying rather than risible.
Original Score: B+
November 7, 2008
The faux-naive point of view probably worked better in the novel; the literalness of film renders certain of the story's conceits ... overly precious.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/10
November 7, 2008
Will undoubtedly pull many a heartstring and make many an audience member shed a tear, but, with a premise and execution this hollow and manipulative, I beg you, don't fall for it.
November 7, 2008
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas has a storybook innocence about it, by design.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
November 6, 2008
And while the conclusion isn't a mystery, that doesn't make witnessing it any less profound or powerful, the tears I shed in the final moments as heartfelt and as genuine as any I've probably cried this year.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
November 6, 2008
This beautifully rendered family film is told in a classic and old-fashioned style, in the best sense, providing poignant and powerful teachable moments.
Original Score: 3.5/4
November 6, 2008
The premise doesn't excuse lapses in logic, but the power of the story and the performances is indisputable.
Original Score: 3/4
November 6, 2008
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is not only about Germany during the war, although the story it tells is heartbreaking in more than one way. It is about a value system that survives like a virus.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
November 5, 2008
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas should be heartbreaking, but it isn't. The muted quality of its impact is the result of narrative shortcuts and a desire to keep the images from being too startling.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
November 5, 2008
As a Holocaust-for-kids fable, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is an appalling, jaw-dropping movie that will cause serious nightmares.
Full Review
| Original Score: D-
November 4, 2008
At once too historically removed from its subject and too hysterically committed.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
September 15, 2008
The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas appears to be a little conflicted: it desperately wants the viewer to care about Bruno and Shmuel, yet the fact that this is a story not reality... places it, and the viewer, at arm's length.
September 12, 2008
Only in the last 10 minutes does it get to grips with the full horror of the Holocaust, and that saves it from a Disneyish propensity not to shock us too much or impose a feelgood ending.
Original Score: 2/5
September 12, 2008
Writer-director Mark Herman has done a creditable job of negotiating its volatile compound of fable and realism.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
September 12, 2008
The film's flimsy fabric of historical reimagining - a death camp with no watchtower and an out-of-sight corner for illicit pow-wows and tunnel-digging - makes the notionally harrowing ending seem a smash-and-grab raid on our susceptibilities.
September 12, 2008
Moreover, the production lacks the personal touch that might allow this story to resonate as parable - it's too conventionally classy and Miramaxed, with its swooping, prestige-picture camerawork and lachrymose score by the dread James Horner.