So, it’s 1942 and we’re in Alsace, France—right in that not-yet-occupied zone. We’ve got this teen, Sara, who’s just 15. But things start getting pretty tense with the German presence ramping up. Confronted with raids, Sara ends up being saved by Julien’s family. Now Julien is this sweet guy dealing with polio, someone she initially kept at arm’s length. But guess what? They form a tight bond that blossoms while she has to stay hidden.

Now about the movie itself—it tries so hard to stick to the book that it loses some of its punch along the way. Marc Forster probably saw how well “Wonder” did and figured he could ride that wave with his new flick here. However, trying to make a connection to the Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson film seems kind of forced.

Sure, it starts off showing a bully from “Wonder” getting kicked out of school—that’s supposed to link into grandma Helen Mirren telling her backstory as a young Jewish girl facing persecution. The connection is flimsy at best since both stories were penned by R.J. Palacio—but just because something works on paper doesn’t mean it clicks perfectly on film.

Even though Marc Forster has movies like “Christopher Robin” and “The Kite Runner” under his belt—you’d think he’d know how tricky adapting a book can be, right? His American perspective does bring some upsides though when taking this story screenward but… yeah there’s more to stew over!
Imagine a movie that digs into the dark history of some French folks teaming up with Nazi occupiers. It doesn’t hold back, even showing young people as more ruthless than the Nazis sometimes.

But there’s a twist—some parts of this story feel a bit off, almost like they belong in a fairy tale and not in the intense setting we’ve got here. Imagine, for instance, little Julien being an assistant at the projector room and seeing things appear on walls that aren’t really there—the imagination runs wild!

Then there’s this scene, which is massively out of place: wolves showing up randomly. And they keep bringing up this free bird metaphor thing. All these magical bits kind of mess with what could have been a solid core plot—about Sara, who used to look down on Julien because he can’t walk, now getting judged herself and learning to see him differently.

This story really had potential to speak to younger audiences but kinda missed the mark along the way.