A nice picture. "Nice" here is both a compliment and perhaps a bit of a jab. Very Miramax circa the late 1990s, for better or worse. This film will drive people who hate safe, sentimental Holocaust stories up the wall, and there are a few groan-inducing moments: a marital spat is given too much weight right after the depiction of Jewish children being loaded into a camp-bound train, and there is a highly contrived third-act beat involving the unseen firing of a gun. But it is a handsomely mounted period piece, and Jessica Chastain delivers another elegant and passionate performance, and the story's zoo milieu is novel.

I was quite riveted by Shira Haas' hard-edged, nearly silent performance as an adolescent rape victim. Her character's plight and spiritual recovery is arguably the film's most poignant element; unfortunately the screenplay or final cut mostly forgets her in the home stretch, which is when it also becomes a tad whiplash-inducing in its condensing of time (Chastain is not pregnant. Chastain is pregnant! she is going into labor! ...within around two minutes).

B-

This was decent adaptation of the book but it adds nothing more to its screen value. It diffuses tension at key moments and while it wants the audience to feel the tragedy there is nothing on display to feel that. Chastain does great, Bruhl is great in a few scenese but rest of the cast is just passable.

5/10

The Zookeeper's Wife treads well trod ground, but at least director Niki Caro knows how to pull those heartstrings. I'm a Jessica Chastain fan, and she's fine here, but clearly out of her depth. This movie would have been much better with a European actress, less distracting. A better screenwriter to tighten up the slack script would also have been welcome. *C+*

It's enjoyable and Jessica Chastain gives a great performance, but I'd be lying if I said that it really did anything to differentiate itself from your standard Holocaust drama. It's fairly by-the-numbers. B-

It was pretty to look at and had cute animals, but otherwise it was dull.

C-