Delayed Reaction: The Zookeeper’s Wife

Premise: During WWII, a zoo in Warsaw becomes a secret safe haven for Jews escaping German persecution.

 

Dammit. The beats of a decent WWII movie are so simple and easy to pull off that I can never be done with the genre. I want to be. I’ve seen enough WWII movies for 2 lifetimes already. The mix of timing (right as the film industry really set its roots in society), the scope (so many countries were involved, directly and indirectly), and the simple good/evil divide (Nazis are easy to root against; the Holocaust is easy to denounce) means there are always new stories and ways to invest an audience. So, I want to roll my eyes and say “ugh, another one?” when I realize The Zookeeper’s Wife is a WWII movie. However, I watch it and it’s pretty decent. I don’t think there’s any better source of C+/B- movies than WWII. Movies just good enough to hold my interest while still making me annoyed by how many there are.

 

So, yeah, The Zookeeper’s Wife of pretty good. I like Jessica Chastain in it. In the last 12 years, I don’t think there’s anyone with more movies that you could see how they could’ve been an Oscar nomination. That’s not to say she’s been “snubbed” on the most movies. I don’t think The Zookeeper’s Wife deserved to be in an awards discussion, but I could see how things could’ve broken so that it was. The right film festival could’ve picked it up. Focus Features’ campaign slate could’ve fallen a different way. She’s got a lot of these movies. Take Shelter, The Tree of Life, Lawless, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, Interstellar, A Most Violent Year, Crimson Peak, Miss Julie, Molly’s Game, The Forgiven, Woman Walks Ahead.

 

You have Jessica Chastain, reliable as ever. Casting Daniel Bruhl as the villainous Nazi officer is on the nose, which is just another way of saying “he’s cast well, but they didn’t find him first”. I’m now more curious to see Netflix’s Unorthodox after how much Shia Haas stood out in this.

As with most WWII movies, it starts with a bang and ends with a fizzle. The German bombing on Warsaw, destroying the zoo, is the most exciting sequence in the movie. The most intriguing part is seeing them develop their system of rescuing and hiding Jewish people. The rest of the movie becomes about maintaining it. There’s some tension in that, but it only goes so far.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend