‘White Bird’ movie review: A stately Helen Mirren rescues this WWII film from a maudlin morass  

Orlando Schwerdt as Julien and Ariella Glaser as Sara in ‘White Bird: A Wonder Story’
| Photo Credit: Larry Horricks/Lionsgate

White Bird brings to mind that other underwhelming WWII drama All the Light We Cannot See. The mini-series starring Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie among others, based on Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2014 novel also features teenagers finding love and hope amidst the crushing jackboot of Nazi-occupied France. And while as good-looking as the series, White Bird, a sequel and prequel to 2017’s Wonder, based on R. J. Palacio’s graphic novel, veers close to kitschy and maudlin only to be rescued by the talented Ms Mirren as Grandmère Sara. 

Julian (Bryce Gheisar) has been expelled from school following his bullying of Auggie in Wonder. In his new school, he decides the best way to survive is to keep his head down and be neither cruel nor kind to anyone. When he tells Grandmère his strategy, she tells him of her experiences of growing up in a pretty village in France filled with beauty and picnics in bluebell-strewn woods with her father, Max (Ishai Golan), a doctor, and her mother Rose (Olivia Ross), a mathematics professor.  

It is 1942 and Sara (Ariella Glaser) admits to being a little spoilt by her parents and even as the noose of German occupation tightens around their village, Sara goes to school giggling with her classmates and crushing on handsome Vincent (Jem Matthews). Her teacher Mlle Petitjean (Patsy Ferran), encourages her to keep drawing as she has a gift. 

Helen Mirren in ‘White Bird: A Wonder Story’

When signs start appearing on shopfronts against Jews and Rose loses her job, Max tries to convince her (Rose) it is time to leave. They leave it for too late and Pastor Luc (Stuart McQuarrie) the headmaster of Sara’s school, tries to hide the Jewish children from the Nazis who come to take them away. Vincent, being as racist as he is handsome, betrays the children and Sara is the only one who manages to hide. 

Julien, (Orlando Schwerdt) Sara’s classmate, who is lame with polio, hides Sara in the family barn, and his parents, Vivienne (Gillian Anderson) and Jean Paul (Jo Stone-Fewings) make her feel welcome. A bond forms between Julien and Sara between lessons, where Julien teaches Sara what he learns in school and imaginary trips to Paris and further afield to New York. Trouble in paradise comes in the form of the villainous Vincent and everything falls apart before the final rousing speech at a retrospective held for Grandmère who is now a highly regarded artist.  

There are moments, especially towards the end of the film that are so overwrought, that you begin to wonder if you have wandered into a dreadful ‘80s Hindi potboiler — where is Nirupa Roy with a hollow cough and black shawl? However, thanks to Mirren, who commands one away from every plot-hole and cliché, and the young leads, one can just about sit through the film. Gillian Anderson, on the other hand, seems out of sorts and not her usual confident self.  

The visuals are vanilla pretty with wolves, snow and naked trees providing the requisite backdrop to the predictable tale of bravery, courage and cowardice.  

White Bird is currently running in theatres