In “White Bird,” Helen Mirren stars as a French Jewish grandmother who survived the Shoah, recounting her youthful experience to her grandson Julian (Bryce Gheisar), a boy who is struggling to fit in at his new school after being expelled from his previous one for mistreatment of another student. Concerned for her grandson, Grandmere Sara tells him the story of her past, one he has never heard, to instruct him in the lasting power of kindness. In flashback, the grandmother’s story takes us to World War II France, to her old French village in the woods, where the kindness of a non-Jewish boy saved her life.
Also starring Gillian Anderson, “White Bird” is a moving, beautifully shot and sensitively told family drama from director Marc Forster, who also directed “Neverland.” The film is essentially a young adult tale, offering a coming-of-age, historical story about a grandmother teaching her troubled grandson valuable life lessons about bravery and kindness, by using her own experiences surviving the Shoah. The screenplay by Mark Bomback is based on a graphic novel by R.J. Palacio, “White Bird: A Wonder Story,” which is a composite of several true stories that are lightly fictionalized.
The film moves back and forth in time a bit, as storyteller Grandmere Sara weaves her own history into a lesson for her troubled grandson. Young Sara (Ariella Glaser) is a beloved only child, a bit spoiled, the daughter of a doctor father and a math teacher mother. They have a comfortable life. At school, bright Sara also shows a talent for drawing, and is encouraged by her teacher. Sara has a crush on a handsome boy, Vincent (Jem Matthews), but like most of the students, she ignores another boy, who had polio and now walks with a crutch and a leg brace, although some of her peers target him for taunting and bullying.
When the Nazis first arrive, nothing much changes, even for French Jewish families like Sara’s because the town is in “unoccupied” France. But then things do start to change, with signs banning Jews going up in shop windows and Jewish people losing their jobs, including Sara’s mother. When Nazis come to the school to round up the Jewish students, Sara manages to escape and hides in the school. She is unsure what to do, until the boy with the crutch, whose name is Julien (Orlando Schwerdt), offers his help. Julien smuggles her out and takes her to his parents’ farmhouse, where his kind-hearted non-Jewish parents hide her.
