In light of Brittany Murphy's recent and tragic death, I decided to watch some of her movies I'd never seen and I found this one. "The Devil's Arithmetic" is the kind of movie that would be good for middle-schoolers who don't know much about the Holocaust. It doesn't dumb down the atrocities of a concentration camp, but it doesn't focus on depicting them in graphic detail, either. While there are several deaths, many happen off-screen, and those we do see are bloodless but blood-chilling.
Fans of the book, which I read several times in middle school and early high school, will probably be disappointed; there's no Gitl, Rivka is Hannah's cousin, and some of the more suspenseful episodes of the novel are gone. However, if you've never read the book or can set the book aside, the film has an interesting story and does a good job of establishing a culture that will be unfamiliar to the viewer. Brittany Murphy is probably the best thing about this movie, and I don't say that out of pity; she plays Rivka as a sweet, kind, devoutly religious young woman who is the movie's emotional backbone. Kirsten Dunst is, well, Kirsten Dunst. She isn't bad in the part, but she doesn't make herself terribly memorable in it, either.
Older audiences might think "The Devil's Arithmetic" sanitizes the Holocaust, but I'd have to disagree. It doesn't whitewash what happened - it just presents it in a way that won't cause twelve-year-olds to have vivid, gory nightmares. If the film has a large flaw, it's that Hannah never develops much of a personality beyond a bratty kid who has to adjust to life in the camp. That was the flaw of the book too, I think. At the same time, that blankness allows viewers Hannah's age to imagine themselves as Hannah and react and learn as she does.
Fans of the book, which I read several times in middle school and early high school, will probably be disappointed; there's no Gitl, Rivka is Hannah's cousin, and some of the more suspenseful episodes of the novel are gone. However, if you've never read the book or can set the book aside, the film has an interesting story and does a good job of establishing a culture that will be unfamiliar to the viewer. Brittany Murphy is probably the best thing about this movie, and I don't say that out of pity; she plays Rivka as a sweet, kind, devoutly religious young woman who is the movie's emotional backbone. Kirsten Dunst is, well, Kirsten Dunst. She isn't bad in the part, but she doesn't make herself terribly memorable in it, either.
Older audiences might think "The Devil's Arithmetic" sanitizes the Holocaust, but I'd have to disagree. It doesn't whitewash what happened - it just presents it in a way that won't cause twelve-year-olds to have vivid, gory nightmares. If the film has a large flaw, it's that Hannah never develops much of a personality beyond a bratty kid who has to adjust to life in the camp. That was the flaw of the book too, I think. At the same time, that blankness allows viewers Hannah's age to imagine themselves as Hannah and react and learn as she does.