Yes. . . The Zookeeper’s Wife is a movie that shouldn’t so much have a star rating as a hankie rating – though the atmosphere is lightened slightly by the world’s bounciest baby camel, which joyfully careers around the zoo paths with exuberant delight during the early scenes. Now that we have that out of the way, let me add, The Zookeeper’s Wife Movie isn’t bad at all. . . The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story, by Diane Ackerman, tells the true story of Antonina and Jan Zabinski who helped rescue hundreds of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II by hiding them in … Every life saved is precious, and there's good reason to honor the Żabińskis and those like them. . It has a powerful plot to take the movie chugging to fruition. With Jessica Chastain, Johan Heldenbergh, Daniel Brühl, Timothy Radford. The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story. A film called the Zookeeper’s Wife, with many central female characters, even reduces the strong female lead (Antonia Zabinska, played by Jessica Chastain) to simply the wife of a zookeeper. The Zookeeper’s Wife I went into this book having no idea that it wasn’t fiction, and that it was about Poland and WWII. Last Updated on October 26, 2018, by eNotes Editorial. The Beginning: Antoninas husband, Jan, lived the more dramatic life. Based on Antonina's diary, their heroic story is the focus of the 2017 film, The Zookeeper's Wife, which stars Jessica Chastain. In researching The Zookeeper's Wife true story, we learned that the Nazis' September 1939 invasion of Poland and bombing of Warsaw left much of the zoo destroyed. Jan Zabinski was a zookeeper and member of the Polish resistance Keepers of the Warsaw Zoo, Antonina and Jan Zabinski, must save hundreds of people and animals during the Nazi invasion in WWII Poland. Directed by Niki Caro. Even though The Zookeeper’s Wife endeavours hard to reach that greatness meter via its gorgeous plot, there is something that stops it from making it all the way up there. He was a lieutenant in the clandestine Polish Army and a professor in Warsaw’s secret university. But once there it was up to Antonina to watch over the In her book, Diane Ackerman describes the damage to the zoo in grave detail, stating, "The sky broke open and whistling fire hurtled down, cages exploded, moats rained upward, iron bars squealed. The Zookeeper's Wife ends, inevitably, with white text on a black screen, telling viewers that the Żabińskis saved 300 Jews, and that they were declared Righteous Among the Nation by Israel. He smuggled Jews out of the Warsaw Ghetto to the zoo. https://people.com/movies/true-story-behind-the-zookeepers-wife Until it’s shot dead by an evil Nazi. I can’t say it was a joy to have all this new, horrible information unfold as it read. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2007. The Zookeeper's Wife, as a PG-13 movie, does not feel like the ideal way to tell this real-life story. Word Count: 1771.