Pair up any actor we like with cute animals, and we’re halfway sold. Tom Hardy and a puppy in “The Drop“? You didn’t need to tell us twice to go see that. And now, Jessica Chastain hanging with some adorable zoo animals in “The Zookeeper’s Wife“? We’ve already bought our ticket. But in the case of this film, there is a much more serious story happening outside of the beautiful creatures.
Directed by Niki Caro (“Whale Rider,” “McFarland“), the film is based on the 2007 book by Diane Ackerman about husband and wife zookeepers who convinced a Nazi zoologist to let them keep running their property as a pig farm, all while using the vast space to hide Jews escaping persecution and death.
“It was a wonderful story about not only animal nature vs. human nature but about radical compassion and humanity. The Zabinskis sheltered Jews at tremendous risk to themselves for a very simple reason: because it was the right thing to do,” Caro told USA Today. “These Jews lived a reasonably peaceful and luxurious existence relative to the life they had experienced in the ghetto. Some stayed just a night, some stayed for years, but the risk was just astonishing.”
Co-starring Johan Heldenbergh and Daniel Bruhl, “The Zookeeper’s Wife” opens on March 31, 2017.
