Movie Review: The Boy in The Striped Pajamas

Everyone loves watching movies, they’re used for entertainment by people all over the world. I love to watch movies. Especially when I’m with my friends or even when I’m alone and bored. While my favorite genre of movies is typically horror films, I like to branch out every once in a while. Other genres of movies I enjoy watching are dramas, comedies, or romantic movies. Out of the other genres I favor, my top pick would be drama. These types of movies to me are the closest to horror or suspense films. They are similar because the drama still leaves me on the edge of my seat. I am also fond of this genre because there is a large variety of what could be considered a drama film so they don’t get very repetitive when I watch them.

The drama themed movie I have picked for my review is The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, directed by Mark Herman. This movie was released in 2008, so it is a pretty old movie but is still very popular. I heard many good things about the movie for a few years but never had time to watch it. However, I was pretty bored over this recent summer and decided to just turn it on. I had high expectations going in since I had heard nothing but good things, and the movie lived up to its name.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas takes place in Germany during the Second World War. The main character, Bruno, along with his family have to leave their home in Berlin for his dad’s job at a concentration camp. However, Bruno doesn’t know that concentration camps exist or that Jewish people are “bad”. When it is time to move Bruno is hesitant to have a different home and go to a new school with no one he knows. He tries to make the best of the situation by creating different games and playing with his toys. One day while Bruno is playing, he became curious and decided to wander away from his house into the woods. He continues to play and run through the trees. He stumbles across a fence. Bruno begins to walk closer and sees a little boy around his age behind the fencing wearing striped pajamas.

As the days pass, Bruno and the boy, Shmuel, become close friends. Bruno brings him food whenever he can and plays with him. One day when Bruno is trying to bring his new friend food, he gets caught and is then forbidden to ever speak with the little Jewish boy ever again. He doesn’t agree so he decided to keep seeing him anyways. Neither of them understands the difference between one another and that doesn’t stop them from being friends. The next time the boys meet Bruno sneaks in through the fence to see what Smhuel’s house is like. However, the Nazi’s are loading the Jewish people from the camp into a gas chamber. The boys don’t realize what’s going on as they’re being led to their fate, but they stick together even while getting pushed by everyone around them. Bruno and Shmuel end up getting trapped in the gas chamber and pass away.

I very much enjoyed watching this movie because I think it teaches a good lesson that even if you are different from someone else, that doesn’t take away from the fact that we’re all still human. I thought it was very creative to make the main characters children, because they have a sense of innocence where they see everyone the same. The storyline flowed well with the time frame and was portrayed very well. This whole movie was overall terrific and I would watch it again.