Caro floods the film’s frames with light, resulting in a film far prettier than expected, but more sanitised too. It’s odd, then, that the film draws explicit parallels between the zoo’s caged stock and the Jewish women and children she eventually hides from the Nazis in her basement (“a human zoo,” she ponders softly while I sighed aloud in the cinema). Reviews have compared this book to Schindlers List and Hotel. How does Diane Ackermans background as a naturalist and a poet inform her telling of this slice of history Would a historian of World War II have told it differently, and, if so, what might have been left out 2. Your email address will not be published. Whether she’s up to her elbows in elephant gunk helping to resuscitate a newborn or snuggling with lion cubs, Antonina’s animal-loving tendencies don’t discriminate between species. The Zookeepers Wife answers this question.' Discussion Questions 1. Be the first to review Matinee Movie: The Zookeepers Wife Cancel reply. A visit from Hitler’s head zoologist, Lutz Heck (Daniel Brühl, deliciously creepy as the animal eugenics enthusiast), confirms the destroyed zoo must be liquidated for the war effort, though Zabiński and her husband convince him to let them convert it into a pig farm and then smuggle some 300 Jews into safekeeping under his nose. Based on a true story, The Zookeepers Wife is a compelling World War II drama about the effort to rescue Jews from. The Zookeepers Wife is a remarkable account of the courage and selfless actions of the occupants of Warsaw during the Second World War who rescued and hid at great personal danger, the hundreds of Jews who were hunted and murdered by the Nazis. The Holocaust drama The Zookeeper’s Wife is handsomely made, well-acted, and lacking in much nuance. Audience Reviews for The Zookeepers Wife. When her husband’s Warsaw Zoo is bombed, it’s unsparingly brutal bloodied polar bears are left slumped over rocks, a slain bison is lowered into a pit. Despite its inadequacies, however, The Zookeeper’s Wife conveys a tale of courage and opposition to authority that provides valuable inspiration for any era. J essica Chastain’s Antonina Zabiński is “a magician” with animals in Niki Caro’s tidy Holocaust drama.