Having long settled in Britain after fleeing Nazi Germany with her family as a young girl, Judith Kerr wrote her semi-autobiographical 1971 children’s novel “When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit” as a response to her own son’s Hollywood-tilted misconception of her childhood.
After watching “The Sound of Music,” he observed that her own escape must have been similar; amused, she proceeded to pen perhaps the most piercing child’s-eye view of Hitler’s rise to power and the Jewish refugee experience ever published — an episodic tale long on wry culture-clash observation and intimate familial strife, but short on Edelweiss sentimentality.
In adapting Kerr’s novel for the screen, writer-director Caroline Link splits the difference somewhat: In this bright, engaging film, Kerr’s story is faithfully and lovingly preserved, though its tougher, quirkier details are mollified by a layer of palatable movie gloss.Reaching U.S.
screens nearly 18 months after its release in Germany,
Read full article