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“White Bird: A Wonder Story”

Lionsgate Films

Directed by Marc Forster

Starring Ariella Glaser, Orlando Schwerdt, Helen Mirren, Gillian Anderson, Jo Stone-Fewings and Bryce Gheisar

Rated PG-13

3 Stars

The movie “White Bird” was originally slated to be released in 2022. Industry tongues wagged when it was suddenly pushed back to 2023, and then due to the SAG/AFTRA strike, pushed back again to 2024. If I’m being honest, I assumed that the delays were probably a clue that the studio was trying to bury the movie because it wasn’t very good.

I’m happy to admit that I was wrong about that.

“White Bird” turns out to be a well-made and engaging young adult flavored morality tale with several superb performances that make it easy to cheer for this film.

The film is being billed as “A Wonder Story” that stars Helen Mirren. That’s a little misleading. The film does begin with Julian (Bryce Gheisar), the bully from the “Wonder” movie sitting down with his grandmother (Mirren) to hear a story from her past, but that’s just the framing device. This is really the story of grandmother’s younger days, back when she was a precocious Jewish girl named Sara living in France during the Nazi occupation.

Ariella Glaser plays the teenage Sara who escapes the round up of Jews thanks to the help of a schoolmate (Orlando Schwerdt) who was crippled by polio in his youth. He agrees to hide her in his family’s barn for a full year while Nazi youth officers are constantly sniffing around.

This is a story of survival in the face of the holocaust, but also the story of young love blossoming in wartime, and perhaps most notably, a story that emphasizes the importance of acts of kindness in changing someone’s life.

It’s a lovely sentiment for a very well-made movie. Director Marc Forster is an old pro at crafting feel-good films that appeal to mainstream audiences. This story is based on a YA graphic novel by R.J. Palacio, which means that its emotional content is presented in black and white hues. There are no shades of ambiguous motivation in this film. That’s a little simplistic, but also excusable in a film where Nazis are the villains.

Glaser and Schwerdt are superb playing the young teenagers. They both get nice character arcs that show their growth over the year while Sara was in hiding. Their romance is chaste, but rather effective as a sanitized love story. I particularly loved our young character’s magical “dates,” where the two imagine what it would be like to drive around the world, even while they are stuck hiding in an old barn. It’s very sweet.

The film does take a dark turn as it moves toward its conclusion. There were several audible cries of “no” from the audience when it became obvious where the story was headed. It was perhaps a little too melodramatic for my taste.

I also wish that one of the Nazi youth bad guys wasn’t written as such an irredeemable caricature. He stopped being a flesh-and-blood creature, which seemed too simplistic given the fine performances from the rest of the cast.

Still, those issues pale when weighed against the acting, impressive period production design, beautiful cinematography and a musical score by Thomas Newman that easily stirs the emotions.

I’m pleased to admit that my preconceptions were wrong. “White Bird: A Wonder Story” is a charming family drama that should please general audiences looking for something wholesome amidst all the scary/bloody horror movies poised to invade theaters in October.

Movie reviews by Sean, “The Movie Guy,” are published each week in “The Port Arthur News.” Sean welcomes your comments via email at sean@seanthemovieguy.com You can get more of Sean’s reviews by subscribing to the 2 Movie Guys podcast.