The Zoo Keeper's Wife Review

What I liked: This is an inspiring story. Not, as one might imagine from the title and cover art, in an early 20th century "We bought a zoo" kind of way or even a look at all these cute zoo animals kind of way. It is inspiring in a Schindler's List kind of way, the story of a Polish family who used their destroyed zoo as a cover to smuggle more than 300 Jews out of the Warsaw ghetto. This is similar in scale to the efforts of the ten Boom family and about 1/4 the scale of Schindler's operation. But it this endeavor, in addition to hiding the Jews and passing them on to other safe houses, included a massive smuggling operation to extract them from the ghetto. The characters make courageous decisions in terrible terrible circumstances. Clearly the main characters are brave and mastermind an elaborate rescue operation, but all of the side characters ring true too. I don't know if the characters represent individuals or are composites but the film did an excellent job of presenting them as real people who do their best to make the right decision. From an old professor who refuses to be rescued so that he can stay with and comfort the many children in the ghetto, to the Nazi maid working for the family who safe guards their secret saying "you have been good to me now I will be good to you," to bakers who run a forgery operation to supply fake passes, to the entomologist who vastly broadens the number of people they are able to get out of the ghetto, all of the characters are clearly complex and trying hard to be good. But the film also captures the tension of never knowing who can be trusted, you feel the anxiety every time there is a new person that this one could be the spy who brings the whole thing crashing down.

What I didn't: So, I came up with a rather petty list in the beginning of the film before it was very clear what it would be about. We'll start with that and then move on to how this episode in history is itself something that ranks very high on my list of things I don't like. The family has a pet skunk who lives in their house and sleeps with their very cute little boy. Of all the creatures in a zoo that you could share your house with, I don't know why you would choose a skunk. In the very beginning of the movie the zoo is bombed releasing the animals to roam Warsaw. The soldiers take down the elephant (with only four shots from regular rifles) but apparently make no efforts to deter the lions and tigers who go wandering through the city streets. During the bombing raid apparently the entire population of Warsaw goes to the train station to try and leave the city. For future reference, when your city is being bombed you want to stay very far away from infrastructure hubs. Also if you are ever a bomber a zoo is not an infrastructure hub and there are probably more effective military targets. The film stays very tight with a single villain. This makes it easy to keep track of: the rival zoologist who is a threat to the zoo animals, the zoo, and the zoo keeper family is also one of the major officials in charge of the city occupation, maintaining the ghetto, busting up forgery operations, and deploying occupation troops. While this is tidy and helps us focus all our fear and animosity at a single representative of Nazi evil, it fails to represent the much more staggering, highly organized, highly pervasive reality in which all of these jobs would have been done by separate people: an army of deadly observers filling the city, each one equally threatening to the fragile rescue and resistance efforts. The movie covers almost the entirety of the war and the way the passage of time is represented is confusing.

Who should watch this? Not people expecting a movie about a zoo. This is not appropriate for children. It is very tense. There are several execution style shootings, and many dead bodies. One rape is strongly referenced and there is an attempted rape.

Would I watch it again? It was a good movie. As mentioned it is an amazing inspiring story and does a great job of representing many different characters. I would rather have seen one about zoo animals. Maybe next time I will watch planet earth.