Have some Tissues Ready

"The Boy in the Striped Pajamas", a novel written by Ireland native, John Boyne, has finally been made into a movie. Directed by Mark Herman and produced by David Heyman, this heartfelt film stars Asa Butterfield, David Thewlis and Vera Farmiga... and the music is by James Horner (who also did the soundtrack for Titanic), so you know its going to be good.

The movie tells the strory of an eight year-old boy named Bruno, the sheltered son of a Nazi officer whose promotion takes the family from their nice and comfortable home in Berlin to a pretty much deserted area where the lonely boy finds nothing to do and no one else to play with. Boredom and compelles him to curiosity. He ignores his mothers instructions not to explore the back garden and heads for the backyard anyway. He finds a "farm"(which is really Auschwitz) and sits outside of the fence. There he meets Shmuel, a boy his own age who lives a behind the barbed wire fence. Bruno's encounter with the boy in the striped pajamas leads him from innocence to an awareness of the adult world.

The author commented that he chose to tell the story through the eight year old boy in oder to take own a unique perspective full of innocence and how easily it can be shattered.

The film was shot in Budapest between April and June 2007 and was released on September 12, 2008 in Ireland and the UK, on September 17, 2008 in China and Japan, on October 3, 2008 in Finland and on November 7, 2008 in USA.

You can go see this movie at your Local Ritz Theatre