Among the most compelling moments in White Hen, Marc Forster’s principally slushy adaptation of R.J. Palacio’s graphic novel of the identical title, happen throughout flashbacks to the Nineteen Forties. These are the recollections of an growing old grandmother making an attempt to show her grandson classes about kindness. They’re additionally tales of survival, and Forster, with DP Matthias Königswieser, movies them in a approach that avoids the trimmings of sentimentality.

In them, the German-Swiss helmer behind Monster’s Ball, Quantum of Solace and extra lately A Man Known as Otto reaches for a specificity and a clear-eyed honesty that liberates components of this younger grownup movie from narrative contrivance. Sadly, an excessive amount of of the remainder of Mark Bomback’s screenplay tends towards saccharine manipulation.

White Hen capabilities as each a prequel and a sequel to Surprise, one other Palacio work tailored for the large display screen. That story adopted Auggie Pullman, a 10-year-old boy with Treacher Collins syndrome who’s laid low with children at college, together with the rich Julian (Bryce Gheisar). This one opens just a few years later with Julian, barely older however nonetheless performed by Gheisar, beginning his first day at a brand new college. It’s a chance for Julian to remake himself and shed his unsavory previous, and he’s determined the perfect plan of action is to remain below the radar. When a classmate (Priya Ghotane) invitations Julian to hitch the vaguely named Social Justice Membership, {the teenager}, perpetually hidden below his hoodie, declines. 

Later that night, Julian explains his plan to his grandmother, Sara (Helen Mirren), a classy lady who has traveled from Paris to New York for the opening of her retrospective on the Met. (She humorously deems the consideration an establishment’s approach of apologizing to older artists they’ve both forgotten or altogether uncared for.) As Sara guides Julian to the eating room for dinner, she expresses disappointment — she doesn’t consider changing into a wallflower is the right plan of action for somebody as soon as suspended for bullying. Over a meal whose intimacy is signaled by means of heat lighting and close-up angles, Sara shares the story of her childhood and the way the compassion and braveness of 1 boy saved her life. 

White Hen then jumps again to the autumn of 1942, the place a younger Sara (Ariella Glaser) enjoys what her older self now describes as a comparatively spoiled youth in small-town France. She spends her days at college, drawing intricate doodles and crushing on Vincent (Jem Matthews), a well-liked boy. Although information of Nazi invasions dominate the information, occupation feels to the younger lady like a distant problem unlikely to achieve her nook of the world.

However then Sara’s actuality adjustments, slowly at first after which extra dramatically. Retailers she as soon as frequented now have indicators saying they don’t serve Jewish individuals. These she referred to as buddies deal with her with an uncharacteristic frostiness. In heated late-night conversations, her mother and father, Max (Ishai Golan) and Rose (Olivia Ross), argue about whether or not or to not depart their city.

The Nazi affect and presence within the space turns into nonetheless extra obvious because the roundups start, with troopers barge into properties, workplaces and colleges making violent arrests. Sara solely narrowly escapes a daunting incursion at her personal establishment with the assistance of Julien (Orlando Schwerdt), a quiet boy left disabled by polio. He leads her by means of an underground labyrinth to the barn the place she’ll reside for years, regularly changing into a part of his household. Julian’s mom Vivienne (Gillian Anderson) takes particular care of Sara, preserving her fed, making her garments and fiercely defending her from the gaze of nosy neighbors who is perhaps Nazi informants. 

Forster’s regular course retains this thread of White Hen affecting even when it conforms to predictable narrative beats. Glaser and Schwerdt are a charismatic duo, and the specificity of the small print in regards to the constrictions of the Nazi state make their friendship extra tactile and raises the film’s stakes. It’s simple to consider that these youngsters look after one different and that their interactions — whether or not in actual life or within the cocoon of their imaginative play — deepen their understanding of one another and the world. 

The identical can’t be mentioned for the flimsy framing narrative in regards to the connection between an older Sara and her grandson. These scenes battle to shake off the stiffness of obscure platitudes and shallow character improvement. Every time White Hen leaves a younger Sara and Julien, whether or not to contemplate the altering sociopolitical panorama of Nazi-occupied France or to return to the current day, it loses its magic.

That Julien’s meant to extract solely classes about kindness works much less nicely right here than in Surprise. If he had been to develop into passionate for a specific trigger, reasonably than simply being requested to attend the blandly named Social Justice Membership, the messages of White Hen would possibly stick higher and really feel much less manipulative. As a substitute, audiences are left with Sara’s contextless invocation of Martin Luther King Jr. — a determine whose quotes have been so watered down by basic software that the pressure of their which means, very like Sara’s story, is at all times prone to being misplaced.