by Nick Nitkowski

“White Bird” was one of those movies that wasn’t really on my radar. I kept seeing the same advertisement for it in theaters over and over again until they just suddenly stopped, which I thought was odd. But it looked intriguing enough for me to give it a fair chance and see what it was all about. The movie is a “kind of” sequel to the 2017 movie “Wonder”/stand-alone film that takes place in the same universe. Both are adapted from books of the same titles written by R. J. Palacio. The movie focuses on the grandmother, played by Helen Mirren, of the kid who bullied Auggie Pullman in “Wonder” and she tells her story of her childhood when she was being judged, persecuted, and forced into hiding for being Jewish in Nazi-occupied France. 

So how is the movie? Surprisingly good. I really enjoyed this movie for the most part. There were a couple of moments in the middle that felt a little slow at times and for a two-hour long movie, I think it could have been cut down to maybe an hour and 45 minutes and it would have been great. But other than that, it’s an enjoyable movie with an important message.

The movie focuses predominantly on the young Helen Mirren character named Sara, played by Ariella Glaser, as well as her protector/love interest Julien, played by Orlando Schwerdt. These two pretty much carried this movie and they both did a good job doing so. But I was also surprised by how much screen time Helen Mirren had in the movie. My initial thought was that she’d only show up at the beginning and the ending of the movie. However, the movie did occasionally cut back to her telling the story or taking a pause for a moment. I was happy to see that she had more screen time than I had initially expected.

I mentioned that the movie had some slow moments in the middle of it and those moments took place when the main character Sara was in hiding. It’s really hard to keep a single location with limited things to do interesting to an audience for a while and it felt like her hiding took up a large portion of the movie’s runtime. I’m sure it was intentional, especially from the source material, but I did feel myself nodding off just a tad after a little while. The movie did pick back up, however, with a visual moment that might be my favorite moment in the whole movie. It may or may not have brought a tear to my eye. And the movie managed to keep my attention the rest of the way through.

Overall, I enjoyed “White Bird” a lot more than I was expecting to. Parents be warned that unlike the previous movie “Wonder” which is rated PG, this second film “White Bird” is rated PG-13. This makes sense because I went in thinking it was a PG movie only to be surprised with gunfire and un-living. This is definitely not a family film in that regard. But it does contain a lot of heart and emotional moments as well as a strong message about choosing kindness along with the intensity of fleeing and hiding from Nazi soldiers. If this was a movie that was on your radar, then I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. If you were looking for a family outing to the movies, I’d say think twice and research it a little more before you decide to see it. But if you were even remotely curious about this movie, I’d say that a good movie awaits you. 

3.5/ 5 stars