“The theme of this film is utterly timeless. The need for compassion, the need for understanding, the need for love is a constant in our life.”
This is how Helen Mirren sums up White Bird, the highly anticipated follow-up film to Wonder.
Those who have seen the deeply touching latter film will know that it, and the book that it was based on, sparked the “choose kind” movement.
The inspirational next chapter, White Bird, reinforces the idea that in a world where we can be anything, we must always be kind.
White Bird follows Julian, who, as shown in Wonder, was expelled from Beecher Prep for bullying August “Auggie” Pullman, a new child who was born with a rare medical facial deformity, mandibulofacial dysostosis. Julian has started at a new school where he struggles to find his feet.
To help him understand the consequences of his prior actions, and to help transform his life, his grandmother Sara, played by Helen Mirren, finally shares her story with him – when she was growing up in Nazi-occupied France, she was a victim of bullying by her peers at school, simply because she was Jewish. A young boy – Julien – and his family showed her kindness, sheltering her from the Nazis and ultimately saving her life.
Without giving too much away, White Bird shows the gradual decline of the town where Sara grew up, as the Nazi presence becomes stronger and stronger. At first, young Sara (played by Jewish actress Ariella Glaser) and the other Jewish children are protected by their teacher and principal. Eventually though, they are given up by Vincent, their school bully. And while the other children are taken, Sara manages to escape with the help of the school ‘outcast’, Julien, who is polio-stricken and, as we all know now, was also at risk of being taken and killed by the Nazis. Julien’s family hide her in their barn.
“One of the really interesting things I found was that another of my relatives actually was hidden in a barn on a farm by a non-related, non-Jewish family, actually hidden from the Nazis,” Glaser said in The Story Behind White Bird, a video released by Kingdom Story Company, the studio behind White Bird. “This was in Holland, but during the war, which I hadn’t found out about before.”
While White Bird is deemed a ‘Holocaust’ film, the stars themselves are saying it is so much more.
“We’ve seen aspects of this story before, in terms of the German occupation of France and the impact it has on these individuals and the choices that they make and the degree of compassion and kindness that they extend to each other at the risk of their own lives,” Gillian Anderson, who plays Julien’s mother, said in The Story Behind White Bird.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.”
Both Wonder and White Bird are based on the best-selling books by R.J. Palacio, whose husband is Jewish. The author told Kveller in 2019 that her mother-in-law was often on her mind when she was writing.
“I was very close to my mother-in-law, and she lost much of her family in the Holocaust. Not that she knew them, but still I think, existentially, to have suffered that kind of profound loss, affects generations. I could not stop thinking about her while I was working on this, wishing she could have lived to have seen it, ’cause I think she would have loved it,” she said.
While the two films are very different, they both share the meaning behind how important kindness is.
“‘Choose kind’ was one of the most important lessons to be learned from Wonder, and that kind of carries into this, but just in a different way. In a way of helping people who can’t help themselves in that situation, and standing up for people who can’t stand up for themselves,” said Bryce Gheisar, who has reprised his role as Julian from Wonder.
As Jem Matthews, who plays Vincent, said, being kind isn’t controversial.
“Telling it in these circumstances, where the stakes are so much higher for these two characters – Julien and Sara – it feels very important,” he said. “Pretty much everything thing in this story is grounded in history. It’s fictional characters but in very real circumstances.”
For Orlando Schwerdt, who plays Julien, it’s a testament to Julien’s character that he hasn’t turned bitter due to being bullied for his disability.
“He still stayed kind, which is really due to his parents,” he said in The Story Behind White Bird. “When he brings Sara back to the barn, and he tells his parents, his parents instead of questioning this, they take Sara in.”
Perhaps this is ultimately the message that Sara is trying to share with her grandson Julian, and viewers.
As Mirren says in the film, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.”
White Bird will have its premiere screening at the JIFF 2024 Program Launch, supported by The AJN. The event will take place on Sunday, September 29 at Classic Cinemas in Melbourne and Ritz Cinemas in Sydney. Tickets available at jiff.com.au
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