By Matthew Moorcroft

Unsure

• Directed by Louise Archambault
• Starring Sophie Nelisse, Dougray Scott, Maciej Nawrocki, Andrzej Seweryn
• R

I won’t lie, I wasn’t familiar with the story of Irena Gut Opdyke, the real life figure that this film is based on, prior to watching this. I guess that goes to show the purpose of the final product, to showcase a life that isn’t exactly well known to the public and give her the due that she deserves for the absolutely amazing things that she did do. Every film, after all, is made with a specific purpose in mind, whether it be to educate, entertaining, inform, challenge, etc, and honestly if I were to just end it there Irena’s Vow would pass with flying colours.

There is a rest of a movie though, and Irena’s Vow is much less successful there. Weird to say a Holocaust drama is a crowd pleaser, but a crowd pleaser this is and not much else, removing much of the darker, more seedy undercurrents that would be in this kind of story in favour of a sanitized retelling with very little in the way of expression or challenge. This is mostly a shame, though to be expected from director Louise Archambault, who has specialized over time to the art of “wooing the TIFF crowd”.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – her 2013 feature Gabrielle remains incredibly likable – but Irena’s Vow, a historical piece based on one of the most notorious human atrocities of the 20th century, feels too quaint and almost haphazard for it’s own good. The handsome production design is a draw, but there is little flair or restraint in the direction, which goes for easy gut punches more then anything else. And by the time you get the final act and the film begins to wrap up, you start to realize that this is really all it has in the can and it’s disappointing.

It’s thankful then that Sophie Nelisse is tremendous in here, simply commanding the screen in every major scene she is in with very little effort. Nelisse, who is not a newcomer to these types of stories after having a star-making and equally as excellent turn in The Book Thief, basically carries this on her back by herself. There is a radiant presence that Irena Gut required to work in a film format and Nelisse takes that and runs with it; you almost feel like she is too fragile for something as big as this and that’s the point. Somebody this fragile and sweet was able to do this, and that’s amazing.

It just sucks that this story got the most basic treatment imaginable. Mind you, it’s never bad, rarely veering into anything less then simply “ok”, which is mostly a testament to Archambault being a halfway decent director and sticking to Dan Gordon’s original play basically verbatim (he is even credited as the screenwriter on this). It’s just a matter of execution, and when the script itself calls for a mostly humble “we are going to get out of this no matter what!” vibe it’s mostly clear where the priorities lie.

General audiences will very likely enjoy or even love Irena’s Vow, as it’s win as the People’s Choice at WIFF would indicate, and that’s ultimately fine. As an introduction to an otherwise lesser known historical figure, it will likely be a good history lesson particularly in classrooms. Otherwise, this is a mostly forgettable historical piece that’s mostly carried by it’s sole lead performance, and you are better off probably just reading Irena’s own biography.