I also can’t say I responded to the petty pangs of jealousy the zookeeper showcased as they pertained to his wife’s manipulations of Lutz, those moments the only ones were I felt like Workman’s script wasn’t up to par. There are also a handful of little moments that aren’t as deftly performed or defined as so much of the remainder proves to be, Jan’s part in the Polish Resistance not developed near as well as I felt it should have been. Time does pass a little strangely in the movie, and it’s not always easy to keep up with the transitions as the months and years go by. They also do a great job introducing Antonia’s connection with the egotistical, smugly pompous Lutz, these early moments setting the stage for the emotional manipulations and interpersonal entanglements to come once the Zabinskis set their plans into motion. Caro and Workman craft an elegant, spellbindingly personal opening act, setting up Antonia’s character with luxurious ease, Chastain building the foundation for the woman’s eventual transformation from shy animal lover to determined resistance fighter beautifully. This is a very good movie, more often than not a superb one. It’s risky, putting not only their lives in danger but that of their children as well, and with the suspicious Lutz always lurking around the chance that their plans will be discovered remains perilously high throughout the entirety of WWII. Using the underground tunnels, cages and pens that they once used to transport animals from one point in the zoo to another, Jan and Antonia start shepherding Jews out of the Warsaw Ghetto, hiding them until plans to get them out of the country to freedom can be formulated. Once the city’s Jewish population is thrown into a fenced-in ghetto, the Zabinski’s realize something must be done. They’re right, but not in the way they initially assume. While friend and zoologist Lutz Heck ( Daniel Brühl), in charge of the Berlin Zoo and now responsible for the surviving animals under the Zabinski’s care, promises to do his best to keep them protected, both Antonia and Jan are understandably concerned their lives as they once knew them have been irrevocably changed forever. But after their city is bombed and their zoo is left in ruins, it is immediately clear that the German threat is no longer theoretical. When her husband Jan ( Johan Heldenbergh) urges her to take their young son and retire to the country, Warsaw Zoo co-owner Antonina Zabinski ( Jessica Chastain) refuses to leave either their home or the animals they both love when invasion is still only a faint possibility. It is 1939, and all of Poland is on edge.
It’s an astonishing tale, one that defies belief, director Niki Caro ( Whale Rider, McFarland, USA) and screenwriter Angela Workman ( Snow Flower and the Secret Fan) treating the material with a level of self-control that allows the inherent dramatics to work on their own without extra melodramatic embellishments. Under the guise of having transformed their zoo into a pig farm with a goal of providing meat for the German war effort, the pair saved an estimated 300 souls, hiding the majority of them in plain sight right under the Nazi nose. “Based on a true story and adapted from Diane Ackerman’s best-selling book, The Zookeeper’s Wife tells the story of a Polish zookeeper and his animal-loving wife who together conspire to liberate Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II.