Power of kindness, lest we forget

Marc Forster’s previous film ‘Wonder’ becomes the framing device for this story. Bryce Gheisar, who had a role in the film, plays a high-schooler here. As Julian Albans, he is trying to adjust to a new educational environment following his expulsion for bullying.

An unannounced visit from Grandmere Sara (Helen Mirren), a celebrated artist having a museum retrospective in Manhattan, sets the ball rolling backwards — reminiscing about a past that clings firmly to today’s incendiary geopolitics. Foster and team are obviously trying to warn today’s generation of the follies of having a fascist mindset… but will anyone learn from it?

Being intuitive, Sara recognises her grandson’s sulk, understands his reluctance to admit his faults, and decides to illustrate the importance of kindness by revealing her own experiences from a distant past.

That’s when the film’s central storyline takes shape. It’s the fall of 1942 in Nazi-occupied France. Fifteen-year-old Sara (Ariella Glaser), self-involved like most teenagers, has little to do with her classmate, a differently-abled boy on crutches who regularly gets bullied and abused. Her mother (Olivia Ross) and father (Ishai Golan) fear they’re running out of time to flee, but prefer to keep it from their beloved daughter as long as possible. Then, the Axis forces arrive and round up all the Jewish residents, including children, from schools.

Sara escapes being captured thanks to the priest, her teacher and another young man, but her budding crush, a fascist, Vincent (Jem Mathews), is out to get her and it’s only the much ignored and abused Julien Beaumier (Orlando Schwerdt) and his parents (Gillian Anderson and Jo-Stone Fewings) who come to her rescue.

The film tries to pit Julian’s bullying against Sara’s rescue in order to score its hits for kindness. It does so without much sentiment or melodrama. But the effect is rather weak and unsatisfying because we don’t see any bonding developing between Sara and her grandson. So, why would he care about what her experiences were or listen to her just because she has dropped in out of the blue?

The script pits two stories against each other but these are not exactly equal in heft. Sara and her rescuer’s story, including their tragic romance, is the one that captures your attention with tense events, driving home the trauma adolescents faced during the Nazi occupation. The fantasy elements brought forth through elaborate CGI feel out of place though.

The other story about Julian learning life lessons from his Grandmere Sara just doesn’t hit the right notes. It feels underdeveloped. The pointed reference to kindness does not exactly work in the modern context, especially when we bear witness to Israel’s current counter-aggression.

Marc Foster’s ‘White Bird’ is not without merit in suggesting that acts of kindness go a long way during the darkest of times, but it has to have a ‘pay it forward’ philosophy to engineer a difference in today’s fractured geopolitical setup. A grim story is treated with elements of lightweight fantasy, brutality is sanitised in order not to offend the young target audience, and romance is factored in when the situation might not be suited for such flights of fancy. Even so, the performances draw attention to the ‘real’ characters in play, while compassion and courage are the true attention-grabbers here.

This film may not have the affecting power of ‘Jo Jo Rabbit’, but it certainly could be a humbling experience for today’s wilful youth.