The Diary of Anne Frank

My wife read the Diary of Anne Frank last year for English class, and when we visited Amsterdam we went to see the house.

The house in this TV series is exactly the same as the real house, almost to the extent that I wonder if they filmed it there.

The story as told in this series is very close to the book and shows Anne as she shows herself in her diary. An intelligent, boisterous, moody, lively teenage girl.

The fact that she was SO full of energy and ideas and yet was cooped up in those rooms for so long is the really moving thing about the book I think and they have captured it very well in the series.

This BBC drama feels completely authentic, I can't think of anything to criticise it about at all!

I've always heard fascinating rumors about Anne Frank and her life living during the Holocaust but I never really found the strength to pick up her book and read her firsthand knowledge about what really happened and what it was like living under bombs. When I found there was a movie on Netflix about her that was young adult friendly, I was more than interested to watch the movie.

Director Jon Jones intends for this movie to inform young audiences about the headstrong young lady, Anne, played by Ellie Kendrick and her struggles and emotions while living in a Dutch underground with more than just her family, while still obtaining the feeling and normality of a regular teenage girl.

After receiving a diary for her birthday Anne is constantly writing all her thoughts and feelings about her now not normal life after finding out that they must go into hiding due to business with her father Otto, played by Iain Glen. With the help from Miep Gies who helps the family hide, Anne's curiosity about the outside world astonishes her and leads her to find out new things about her self and her body. This sassy teenager will not be pushed around and is not afraid to make sure things are fair even if she gets punished.

This film had me at the edge of my seat and I was anxious to see whats happened next. This movie is great for younger audiences and it has an accurate portrayal of what life was like in hiding. Anne will bring our your curious side and you will connect with her as she unravels the truths of the heart.

Cast: Kate Ashfield, Geoffery Breton, Ron Cook, Nicholas Ferrel, Iain Glen, Tamsin Greig, Felicity Jones, Ellie Kendrick

Director: Jon Jones

Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes

Just finished watching episode 5 on BBC i-player. I've been familiar with the story of Anne since I was a child, but I've never seen it told so simply or movingly as it has been over the past five nights on BBC2. I'm a cynical 45 yr old bloke, and there's honestly not much that can make me cry... I'll just have to tell my girlfriend that I've got a cold. Sensitive writing and a superb cast turned this into something special... excruciatingly sad, wonderfully uplifting.

How can anyone endure the petty posturing of Celebrity Big Brother after watching this? So am I really the only person to be posting about this?

Sixty-three years after the death of Anne Frank, this drama presents the story of her years in hiding in five half-hour episodes, which focus in depth on the events within the annex above her father's factory.

Newcomer Ellie Kendrick plays Anne as a fiery teenager, struggling with inner conflicts and her emerging sexual feelings. This couldn't be presented as clearly in earlier adaptations, and I think this is the first version to use pages of the diary as source material which were originally suppressed by Anne's father, the only person of the eight in the annex to survive the war.

Iain Glen and Tamsin Grieg are both superb as Anne's parents, while Margot (Felicity Jones) and Peter Van Daan (Geoff Breton) present their characters' limited facets very well. Ron Cook, Lesley Sharp, and Nicolas Farrell play the remaining refugees (Mr and Mrs Van Daan, and dentist Mr Dussell).

You get a real sense of what it is to live in a confined space, largely in silence, with only a few hours of respite to go downstairs for food (Peter has to take potatoes from the warehouse below), and to talk and live together in some semblance of real life. For three years this was the life for eight individuals and a cat living in close proximity, sometimes with hope, sometimes with fear.

Rightly, this series ends with details of what happened to each of the refugees, and does not flinch from making clear the plight of the Jews outside of the annex, who are taken away in the night and herded into transports towards their death - such a fate also awaits the occupants of the Dutch annex, and it is with a heavy heart we realise this at the end - even though we knew it all the time, we lived in hope along with them.

I love a good TV drama, and The Diary of Anne Frank is that. Along with Occupation, it was one of the highlights of 2009, having been profoundly moved and disturbed by the events detailed in Anne Frank's diary since I was a little girl in primary school, this was a harrowing, poignant, sensitive and wonderfully acted mini-series that stayed true to the book. The mini-series is exquisite to look at, stunning costumes and settings, and the house was exactly like the house in real life. The writing is unusually sensitive, I never felt the mini-series got overly-dramatic or overly-sentimental, quite the opposite, and I think the writing really helped with that. The direction is excellent, and the music is haunting and evocative. It was the acting though where the Diary of Anne Frank really soared. Ellie Kendrick, instead of the obnoxious teenager she could have been, made for an intelligent yet somewhat lively Anne, very like the Anne in the book. Iain Glen is charming as the perfect father figure and Tamsin Grieg is luminous and quiet as the mother. Lesley Sharp is exceptional as Petronella, a selfish and independent matriarch, her actions were very entertaining. Then there is the sudden discovery, even for those who had read the book it was emotional, intense and sudden. Overall, this is a brilliant mini-series, in my opinion it is a must see! 10/10 Bethany Cox