Some of the most gripping moments of White birdMarc Forster's mostly muddy adaptation of RJ Palacio's graphic novel of the same name, is set during flashbacks to the 1940s. These are the memories of an elderly grandmother trying to teach her grandson lessons about kindness. They are also stories of survival, and Forster, with cinematographer Matthias Königswieser, films them in a way that avoids the pitfalls of sentimentality.
Behind them is the Swiss-German helmsman The monster ball, How comforting and more recently A man called Otto achieves a specificity and lucid honesty that liberates parts of this young adult film from narrative artifice. Unfortunately, much of the rest of Mark Bomback's script tends towards maudlin manipulation.
White bird
The bottom line
A touching story undermined by foregone conclusions.
Release date: Friday 4 October
Launch: Ariella Glaser, Orlando Schwerdt, Bryce Gheisar, Gillian Anderson, Helen Mirren
Director: Marc Forster
Screenwriter: Marco Bombback
Rated PG-13, 2 hours
White bird it works as both a prequel and a sequel Wonderanother Palacio work adapted for the big screen. That story followed Auggie Pullman, a 10-year-old with Treacher Collins syndrome who is tormented by boys at school, including the wealthy Julian (Bryce Gheisar). This opens a few years later with Julian, slightly older but still played by Gheisar, starting his first day at a new school. It's a chance for Julian to rebuild himself and shed his unsavory past, and he's decided the best course of action is to stay under the radar. When a classmate (Priya Ghotane) invites Julian to join the vaguely named Social Justice Club, the teenager, perpetually hidden under his hoodie, declines.
Later that evening, Julian explains his plan to his grandmother, Sara (Helen Mirren), a sophisticated woman who has traveled from Paris to New York for the opening of his retrospective at the Met. (He humorously views honor as an institution's way of apologizing to older artists it has forgotten or overlooked altogether.) As Sara ushers Julian into the dining room for dinner, he expresses disappointment: He doesn't believe becoming a wallflower is the right course of action for someone once suspended for bullying. Over a meal whose intimacy is signaled by warm lights and close-up angles, Sara shares the story of her childhood and how one boy's compassion and courage saved her life.
White bird then returns to the autumn of 1942, where a young Sara (Ariella Glaser) enjoys what she now describes as a relatively spoiled youth in a small French town. She spends her days at school, drawing intricate doodles and falling in love with Vincent (Jem Matthews), a popular boy. Although news of Nazi invasions dominates the news, the occupation seems to the young girl like a distant issue that is unlikely to reach her corner of the world.
But then Sara's reality changes, slowly at first and then more dramatically. The stores he once frequented now have signs saying they do not serve Jews. Those she called friends treated her with an unusual coldness. In heated late-night conversations, her parents, Max (Ishai Golan) and Rose (Olivia Ross), argue about whether or not she should leave their town.
The Nazi influence and presence in the area becomes even more evident when the raids begin, with soldiers breaking into homes, offices and schools and making violent arrests. Sara narrowly escapes a terrifying incursion into her own institution with the help of Julien (Orlando Schwerdt), a quiet boy disabled by polio. He leads her through an underground labyrinth to the stable where she will live for years, gradually becoming part of his family. Julian's mother, Vivienne (Gillian Anderson), takes special care of Sara, feeding her, making her clothes and fiercely protecting her from the gaze of nosy neighbors who might be Nazi informants.
Forster's constant direction maintains this common thread White bird it also impresses when it conforms to predictable narrative rhythms. Glaser and Schwerdt are a charismatic couple, and the specificity of the details about the constraints of the Nazi state make their friendship more tangible and raise the stakes of the film. It's easy to believe that these children care about each other, and that their interactions – both in real life and in the cocoon of their imaginative play – deepen their understanding of each other and the world.
The same can't be said for the flimsy narrative about the connection between an older Sara and her grandson. These scenes struggle to shake off the rigidity of vague platitudes and superficial character development. Every time White bird leaves young Sara and Julien, both to consider the changing sociopolitical landscape of Nazi-occupied France and to return to the present day, it loses its magic.
The fact that Julien is destined to learn only lessons about kindness works less well here than in Wonder. Should he become passionate about a particular cause, instead of simply being invited to attend the blandly named Social Justice Club, messages from White bird he may latch on better and feel less manipulative. Instead, the audience is left with Sara's context-free invocation of Martin Luther King Jr. — a figure whose quotes have been so watered down by general application that the force of their meaning, much like Sara's story, is always up to risk of getting lost.
Full credits
Distributor: Lionsgate
Production Companies: Lionsgate, Participant, Kingdom Story Company, Media Capital Technologies, Mandeville Films, 2DUX²
Cast: Ariella Glaser, Orlando Schwerdt, Bryce Gheisar, Gillian Anderson, Helen Mirren
Director: Marc Forster
Writers: Mark Bomback, RJ Palacio (based on the book by)
Producers: Todd Lieberman, pga, David Hoberman, pga, RJ Palacio
Executive Producers: Jeff Skoll, Robert Kessel, Kevin Downes, Jon Erwin, Andrew Erwin, Renée Wolfe, Alexander Young, Mark Bomback, Kevan Van Thompson, Christopher Woodrow, Connor DiGregorio
Director of photography: Matthias Königswieser
Production designer: Jennifer Willians
Costume designer: Jenny Beavan
Editor: Matt Chessé, ACE
Music: Thomas Newman
Casting Director: Kate Dowd, CDG
Rated PG-13, 2 hours