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Though it’s been more than 70 years since the end of World War II, filmmakers continue to find remarkable new stories to tell about the people who risked their lives to save the lives of strangers. And in The Zookeeper’s Wife, director Niki Caro follows a family who cared for both people and animals during the war.
The Zookeeper’s Wife tells the story of the Warsaw Zoo and its keepers, Jan and Antonina Zabinski (Johan Heldenbergh and Jessica Chastain). When the Germans arrive in Warsaw in 1939, much of the zoo is bombed, the animals set loose in the city streets. But the Zabinskis are determined to stay with the remaining animals and keep the zoo operational. And as more and more Jews are taken away to the ghetto, the Zabinkis decide to use their zoo as a waypoint for housing escaped Jews—all while German soldiers patrol the zoo grounds.
Holocaust movies often focus on the soldiers, the camps, the victims, and the horrors of the war. But The Zookeeper’s Wife focuses on some everyday people who set a remarkable plan in motion. And what it lacks in noisy, explosive action it makes up for with its heart and humanity.
Chastain gives an understated performance as Antonina, a shy woman whose love and compassion for her animals expands into a commitment to the hurting strangers who find shelter in her basement. Her character doesn’t give any big, emboldened speeches. She isn’t larger than life. But you’ll love her for her quiet strength and the sacrifices that she’s willing to make.
Other characters, however, don’t fare quite as well. Jan is a shadow of a character—and though his role in the operation is absolutely critical, he often seems to fade into the background. He fights and sacrifices, but he doesn’t have a strong presence. And the couple’s son (played as an older child by Val Maloku) starts out as a cute little boy, only to grow into a stubborn kid whose defiance risks everyone’s lives.
The action and drama here are different, too. The film may not venture into concentration camps to witness the most horrific acts, but it doesn’t have to. Viewers already know what happened there. Instead, Caro tells the story through the eyes of her characters—people whose friends and neighbors were taken away to the nearby ghetto, who witnessed the cruelty and abuse and chose to do something about it. This film isn’t relentlessly brutal or in-your-face, as many films like it are. But in offering glimpses of the story—the elderly scholar who refuses to leave the orphaned children as they board the train to the concentration camps, the swirling ash that floats down on the zoo as the Nazis burn the ghetto—it’s emotionally effective.
The Zookeeper’s Wife tells a surprising story—and a moving one, too. But its understated and sometimes hazy characters rob the film of some of its power. It’s worth watching—but it isn’t an award-worthy Holocaust drama.
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