Waiting for Anya

The poignant wartime drama takes place in a WWII town in the French Pyrenees. It centers on Jo, a teenage shepherd who gets entangled in a clandestine scheme to bring Jewish children into Spain. The story is given further emotional depth by the film's stunning backdrop and sincere performers. The film suffers from erratic pacing and inadequate emotional stakes despite its admirable goals. In spite of this, it provides a thoughtful and modest meditation on empathy and bravery.

Beautifully filmed in a mountainous area of France near Spain. The point of view of a young boy roped into help Jewish children hiding and then fleeing over to Spain. There are some Allo Allo cliched characters played by famous actors including Jean Reno and the quintessential good German Thomas Kretschmann. Angelica Huston is surprisingly okay. There isn't much wrong with the show but it feels boring and cliched with one dimensional characters. But if you accept it is for younger audiences then it's okay for what it is. After all the writer is War Horse's Michael Morpugo.

OK movie set in southern France during the waning years of WW2. Noah Schnapp stars as Jo, a young French boy who finds a man hiding in the woods while he is helping out with the family's sheep. He follows him to a neighbor's house and discovers that the house is being used to harbor Jews who are travelling to Spain for safety.

The movie is intended for younger audiences and many of the scary elements you would see in similar movies has been considerably toned down. Even the German army that has occupied the town seem oddly tame.

While the movie is well acted, the characters lack any depth and are rather cliched. Noah Scnapp and Anjelica Huston are oddly cast being American. The movie is OK overall.

Better movies in this genre are Downfall, Au Revoir Les Enfants; and Schindler's List.

This is a scenario we have seen many times, in many different movies: a family, a group of children or some other sympathy-worthy bunch of individuals, escape from Nazi persecution by crossing the Alps or the Pyrenees or some other obstacle to reach freedom and safety. Many of these movies are truly gut wrenching, engrossing and emotional experiences, sadly, this movie is not quite up to that standard. In fact, it's rather bland.

The makers of this movie mean well, you can see that, but they miss the mark. The scenery is gorgeous. The outdoor shots of the village mostly look suitably authentic. The interior shots though look more like what Hollywood thinks a provincial home, shop or school should look like rather than the real thing. The casting is slightly odd too. It seems a peculiar choice to cast two high profile American actors as French peasants when everyone else in the movie is French or German as the case may be. Angelica Huston and Noah Schnapp are fine actors. I like them both, but they are miscast here. The story here isn't particularly interesting and certainly doesn't evoke the emotional response it should. The story seems rushed and there is a lot that is left unexplored. We never see below the surface of the characters or learn what makes them tick. We don't get to know the characters well enough to really care about them. There is no sense of threat or danger, no dramatic climax and the ending falls flat. Some scenes seem very amateurishly staged. For instance, there is a scene towards the end of the movie where an entire village is supposedly rejoicing. It is the most halfhearted, anemic, poorly attended celebration I have ever seen.

To cut a long story short, this is not a bad movie; there's just nothing special about it. There are so many better and enjoyable movies in this genre that I find myself wondering why the heck they made this one at all. If you really want to see this sort of thing done right, may I recommend the movie 'Fanny's Journey', which was recently streaming on Netflix. It is one of the good ones and there are many others.

Waiting For Anya tells the story of a small village in the French Pyrenees. The scenery is beautiful and you'll feel immersed.

I think many people looking to learn more about the time period will enjoy this film.