White Bird Movie Review

Movies

by Janis Brett Elspas, Editor

Mommy Blog Expert

MBE partnered with Kingdom Faith for this review, post contains affiliate links

New Family Friendly Film Release

The new movie White Bird (Rated PG-13) now on the big screen, is the long-awaited sequel to the movie Wonder (2017). It is inspired by New York Times Bestseller graphic novel author R.J. Palacio's book Wonder (2012), which helped jumpstart the Choose Kind movement. White Bird is showing nationwide across the U.S. now, check local schedules to find a theater near you.

White Bird: Kindness is Forever

White Bird is a must-see, beautifully depicted period film for older kids and their parents of all backgrounds and faiths that's set in war-torn France. During the course of the movie viewers will learn about what the horrors of the Holocaust and the Nazi's siege over much of the Europe continent was really like with a spotlight on how it affected Jewish kids and the righteous non-Jewish peers who helped them. 

The cast is lead by Dame Helen Mirren, winner of an Oscar for Best Actress for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in the movie The Queen, along with promising teenage American actors Ariella Glaser (Radioactive) and Orlando Schwerdt (Children of the Corn) with Bryce Gheisar (A Dog's Purpose), who is expelled from his school for bullying, playing the grandson who is about to learn an important life lesson from his Grandma (Mirren's character) in the feature film.

The Story Line

Sensitively written and directed, this feature film shot on location in the Czech Republic and New York City, thankfully manages to keep the show of violence and otherwise graphically upsetting scenes to a minimum. Instead the action focuses on successfully getting such positive attributes as bravery, selflessness and kindness across to young and older viewers alike. 

White Bird is told primarily through point of view of two innocent yet impressionable kids who could not be more different and who as the movie progresses, form the most unlikely bond and friendship. As the story unfolds, Julian Albans (played by Gheisar), a crippled gentile school boy, risks his own life in an attempt to save his able-bodied classmate Sara Blum (played by Glaser) who was never nice to the boy and is now persecuted simply for being a Jew.

As she is being hunted down by vicious Nazis and their equally vicious dogs, Julian instantaneously forgives Sara for the cruelty she (along with others) has shown toward him and risk his (and his family's) own lives to help her hide in the barn on his parent's property. Mirren narrates, retelling the story of her childhood life as Sara living in Nazi-occupied France to her modern-day grandson, sharing with him for the first-time all the details about how she survived the Holocaust in hiding (with her friend Julian's help).

With inspiring, positive young role models demonstrating the ideals of forgiveness, bravery and loving kindness through their actions, this is a movie that tweens and teenagers, along with their parents, will relate to and well as learn from.

 

More about White Bird

Now showing in theaters, White Bird is rated PG-13 with a run time of 120 minutes. See the movie trailer as well as learn more about the film by following @lionsgate @whitebirdmovie @kingdomstorycompany, as well as hashtags #WhiteBirdMIN, #WhiteBirdMovie, and #BeBraveChooseKind on social. Get your tickets now.

Many thanks to Kingdom Faith Marketing Services for providing a screening of the film for this review. Opinions are 100% my own.