Starring: Ariella Glaser, Orlando Schwerdt, Helen Mirren, Gillian Anderson, Bryce Gheisar
Distributor: Rialto Distribution
Runtime: 120 mins. Reviewed in Mar 2025
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc
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Struggling to fit in at his new school after being expelled for bullying, Julian is visited by his grandmother and is transformed by the story of her attempts to escape Nazi-occupied France during World War II.
A film about occupied France. To appreciate this journey back into the past, it is helpful to know that the film is based on graphic novel by popular author, RJ Palacio. This is very much a Young Adult treatment of the theme. Which means the drama and dreadful situations are be presented in a way that the whole family could watch the film together. There should be no expectations that this will be a graphic treatment for an older audience.
The film opens in the present, in New York City. Julian has been expelled from one school for bullying and is trying to fit in at his new school. But, that is not the story here. Rather, his famous grandmother, a world-renowned artist who is having an exhibition in New York, is concerned about Julian’s expulsion and what will happen to him in a new school. So she tells him the story about her parents in France, and her own experience of World War II. Which means then that most of the film is in flashbacks, often returning to the grandmother and Julian, ensuring that he is listening attentively to her story.
As do we. The grandmother is Sara Blum, played in the flashbacks by Glaser. Sara’s family is Jewish. When the Nazis invade Alsace in northern France, the parents not immediately apprehensive. However, they are suddenly taken away. Sara attends the local school, run by a sympathetic priest. The staff of the school try to save the Jewish students from the Nazis, but everyone but Sara are caught, and we see the brutal death of the young teacher who helped.
Many audiences will be thinking of the Diary of Anne Frank as we see what happens to Sara. She successfully runs away, eluding capture and is helped by a fellow student whom she had ignored in the past. This student, Julien (Australian actor Schwerdt), was the butt of bullying because of his lame leg. With the consent of Julien’s parents, Sara is hidden in the barn, a growing friendship over a period of two years.
Julien is likeable and the audience appreciates the growing friendship between him and Sarah. But, there are the realities of war, some of the local boys from the school align themselves with the Nazis and there are some brutal confrontations. But, of course, Sarah has survived and prospered, having had great opportunity in the barn to continue and develop her drawings, her art. And, as she explains, that is why her young grandson has been called Julian.
Older audiences will be attracted to the film because it is headlined by Helen Mirren and Gillian Anderson. Mirren is the older Sarah, while Anderson is Julian’s mother.
And, the imaginative touch, the presence of the White Bird, and its symbolism of peace and joy, protection.
(Audiences familiar with the writings of Palacio will know her story, Wonder, filmed in 2017. The bully from Wonder is Julian – and this film opens with reference to his being expelled and at the new school.)
12 Random Films…
