New Releases This Week For Home Viewing: The Zookeepers Wife

Well only one new release this Holiday week...but it is a pretty good one.

THE ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE
Directed by Niki Caro
Screenplay by Angela Workman
Based on the book by Diane Ackerman
Starring Jessica Chastain; Johan Heldenbergh; and Daniel Bruhl




Oh boy. If you follow me on Instagram ...which you should https://www.instagram.com/wasp1963/
you would know I read the book.
So it is a difficult review because it is hard not to compare.
I did not really like the book very much. It was just okay. It was very choppy. I believe it was because Ackerman stayed true to the diary which was choppy with open time spans. Still it was an incredible story. Shockingly heroic.
In a rare event..............I like the movie better than the book.

What does the film do right:
-It follows the ........BASED ON A TRUE STORY. In other words it raised the tension.
And most important it does not mess with what the Zabinski's did. They are true heroes.

-As opposed to the book they kept some "Visitors" in the zoo the whole time. It gave us a face of the struggle. Yes...people come and go often like the book...but keeping people there adds tension and emotion.

-They bumped up the part of Heck played by Bruhl....he became the face of the the Germans.

-Casting Jessica Chastain as Antonina. She is absolutely fantastic here. Her fear and bravery just pours off the screen. She was amazing in Sloane last year but was ignored for an Oscar (If she was a man in that part it would have been different). Here she will be ignored because it is April.......voters will forget, which is a shame.

Like noted the story is amazing....the Warsaw Zoo becomes a zoo of people. Brave, scary, and TRUE. It is about love, plain and simple.

Negatives:
The very end. What happened to the daughter? The son? The Zabinski's? The people in the zoo? We just spent two hours with these people....let us know what happened!!! During the credits let us know!!!

4 out of 5 stars for The Zookeeper's Wife. See it...an amazing story that shows the cruelty of the uprising in Poland by the Germans, and the bravery at this zoo.

From the shadows as always thanks for your time.