O Menino e a Guerra

This is a scenario we have seen many times, in many different movies: a family, a group of children or some other sympathy-worthy bunch of individuals, escape from Nazi persecution by crossing the Alps or the Pyrenees or some other obstacle to reach freedom and safety. Many of these movies are truly gut wrenching, engrossing and emotional experiences, sadly, this movie is not quite up to that standard. In fact, it's rather bland.

The makers of this movie mean well, you can see that, but they miss the mark. The scenery is gorgeous. The outdoor shots of the village mostly look suitably authentic. The interior shots though look more like what Hollywood thinks a provincial home, shop or school should look like rather than the real thing. The casting is slightly odd too. It seems a peculiar choice to cast two high profile American actors as French peasants when everyone else in the movie is French or German as the case may be. Angelica Huston and Noah Schnapp are fine actors. I like them both, but they are miscast here. The story here isn't particularly interesting and certainly doesn't evoke the emotional response it should. The story seems rushed and there is a lot that is left unexplored. We never see below the surface of the characters or learn what makes them tick. We don't get to know the characters well enough to really care about them. There is no sense of threat or danger, no dramatic climax and the ending falls flat. Some scenes seem very amateurishly staged. For instance, there is a scene towards the end of the movie where an entire village is supposedly rejoicing. It is the most halfhearted, anemic, poorly attended celebration I have ever seen.

To cut a long story short, this is not a bad movie; there's just nothing special about it. There are so many better and enjoyable movies in this genre that I find myself wondering why the heck they made this one at all. If you really want to see this sort of thing done right, may I recommend the movie 'Fanny's Journey', which was recently streaming on Netflix. It is one of the good ones and there are many others.