White Bird movie review: This Helen Mirren film is noble, but contrived

White Bird still

Film: White Bird
Cast: Ariella Glaser, Orlando Schwerdt, Bryce Gheisar, Gillian Anderson, Helen Mirren, Jo Stone-Fewings, Patsy Ferran, Stuart McQuarrie
Director: Marc Forster
Rating: 2.5/5
Runtime: 120 min

A fairly moving tale about kindness during Nazi brutality, this film is an adaptation of a YA graphic novel, "Wonder Story" by R.J. Palacio.

A largely period set-up, this film has Helen Mirren playing a glorified cameo as the older woman who was once a young Jewish girl, Sara, caught in the crossfires of Hitlers Progrom in Nazi- Occupied France. Grandmere, as she is now referred to, tells her poignant story to her grandson, a highschooler, Julian Albans (Bryce Gheisar) who was suspended from Beecher Prep for being a bully. She is obviously trying to highlight her own survival during that dastardly period because of the kindness of a French family and their son, her schoolmate, who took great risks to keep her safe. Her grandson's eventual capitulation doesn't ring true or work up any emotion though.

The narrative begins with Julian's rustication and shift to a new school before setting up the central conceit about 15 year old Sara's (Ariella Glacer) eventual escape after spending a year and more in hiding, beginning in the fall of 1942.

Marc Foster's narrative takes the earnest, sincere and fairly interesting route to telling this story. But the development of it is a little fractured and unsatisfying. We don't really get to experience the closeness between Grandmere and Julian, her grandson, as the narrative concentrates on contrasting the grandson's school-time fracas with that of Sara's hiding and escape from Nazi brutality, when she was just a mere schoolgirl herself.

This film's major fault-line lies in trying to thrust Grandmere's point-of-view without first establishing a closeness between Sara, now an accomplished and celebrated artist, and her grandson. Contriving an unannounced visit from Grandmère Sara, doesn't sit well exactly. The performances are competent enough though.

Primarily aimed at a target audience between the ages of 8 and 16, this adaptation of Palacio's book manages to factor in appropriate messaging, symbolism and imagery. Forster's visual sensibility may be refined but his storytelling craft doesn't feel smooth or compelling. Matthias Konigswieser's inviting cinematography lends a storybook quality to the telling and Mark Bomback's screenplay stays fairly true to its novel origins. But the uneven pacing between dual timelines, contrived plot elements and obviously manipulative ending counters the effects earned from the largely gritty tone. It may well be understood that this old-fashioned call to virtue is Marc Foster's way of warning the modern world of how burgeoning fascist sentiment could derail humanity. And for that alone, this movie is worth seeing!