The Boy in the Striped Pajamas - review

Eight year old Bruno loves exploring and playing with his friends near his family home in Berlin. So when his father is given a promotion and informs the family they are moving house, Bruno isn’t happy. Relocated to a house surrounded by trees and without a garden, Bruno makes up his mind he doesn’t like it and he also doesn’t like the soldiers who spend their days walking in and out as if they live there too.

Having built a swing in the driveway and forced to be home-schooled, Bruno is bored and longs to find someone to play with. As he discovers from the window in his bedroom, the family aren’t as alone as he first thought when he spies what he believes to be a farm with people working on it not far away.

When he gets the chance, Bruno finds a way to get to the farm and discovers Shmuel, an eight year old boy sitting on the other side of a wire fence who is delighted to see another child. As the two of them get to know each other playing checkers and talking, they realise they could be friends and Bruno visits Shmuel as much as he can although he’s confused why everyone on the farm is wearing pajamas.

As his curiosity gets the better of him, Bruno asks his sister Gretel about the farm and is shocked when she tells him it’s a prison for Jews and that they deserve to be kept away from everyone else. Despite what Gretel says, Bruno is determined to keep meeting with Shmuel and continues his daily visits, but when Shmuel is caught eating while working in the family home, Bruno is scared into pretending not to know him and allows him to be beaten.

With his mother also struggling with the relocation of the family and his sister’s head being turned by a young soldier, Bruno spends more time with Shmuel away from the house and eventually arranges for them to play together by Bruno digging under the fence. Shmuel manages to steal a pair of pajamas so he won’t be recognised and together they both set off in search of Shmuel’s father who has been missing for a few days.

However while the two of them search, Bruno is surprised when he realises the camp is very different to the one shown in the video his father and fellow soldier’s recently watched and decides he wants to go home, but before he can leave, Bruno is caught up in a roundup of prisoners who are led into a chamber for what they’re told will be a shower.

Based on the novel by John Boyne which I have read, I was fully aware of what this movie was about and how it would end. However I wanted to watch it and also felt I needed to having visited the real Auschwitz and seeing firsthand the camp where so many people were led to under false hope.

This powerful movie really brought it home how lucky we are to live in the world today and not during the war when so many were controlled and led to their deaths due to the beliefs of one man.

I feel this is a movie everyone should watch if only for the reason to realise how privileged and lucky we are today.

Any Day Now - review

When drag queen Rudy Donatello’s neighbour leaves her handicapped child on his own, he feels sorry for him and takes him in for the night. So when he discovers she’s been arrested and won’t be returning for Marko, he’s concerned about what will happen.

With an already strong bond, Rudy approaches his lawyer partner in the hope that he can help him gain custody, but with homophobia rife, the only way they can go about it is to not admit to their relationship.

Although Rudy doesn’t agree with it, he goes along with the pretence that he and Paul are family in order to become parents to Marko and when his mum signs over her parental rights to them, for the next year they provide Marko with the family life he deserves.

But when his mum is released early and demands Marko back, she devastates Rudy & Paul whose relationship has been discovered and they know they have a real fight on their hands to battle homophobia if they are to reunite their family and regain custody of Marko.

I found this a powerful, strong and emotional drama starring Alan Cumming which brought me to tears – definitely worth a watch.

A Time to Kill - review

Based on a novel by John Grisham, Samuel L Jackson & Matthew McConaughey both deliver outstanding performances in this powerful and emotive drama of when sometimes the wrong thing is the right thing to do.

In 1990’s America Carl Lee Haley is a ground-worker who when his 10 year old daughter is raped and badly beaten by 2 local lads in the southern state of Mississippi, takes the law into his own hands and kills them. With the town shocked at both crimes, Carl Lee is swiftly arrested and asks for the services of struggling attorney John Riddance who he spoke to before committing the offence.

With no doubt Carl Lee committed murder, John faces a challenge as Carl Lee asks him to represent him to persuade the jury that he killed the lads due to the trauma of what happened to his daughter and although he knows it won’t be an easy case, John agrees to take it on.

As John starts work on the case he knows will take a lot of work, law student Ellen Roark offers her help and together they work on putting forward an insanity plea, but with news of Carl Lee fighting the charges against him, friends of the murdered pair decide to revive the Klu Klux Klan in order to bring justice to the town and set about targeting those closest to the case, including the family of John Riddance.

With his family at risk, John is begged to drop the case but even after his house is burnt down he is determined to carry on as far as he can in his fight for justice, to prove that while Carl Lee purposely ended 2 lives, his reasoning for doing so should be taken into consideration.

But when his request for the trial to be moved to a more integrated town is denied and the odds begin to stack against him, John knows that to have a chance of winning his case, he needs to think along the lines of those against Carl Lee in order to win over the jury.

Set in a time and place when racial segregation and racism was still prominent, this movie didn’t hold back on such a sensitive subject to try and show that while murder is never the right thing to do, sometimes – no matter how hard it is to accept – there can be A Time to Kill.