Fugitive Pieces
SOMETIMES a filmmaker can be too respectful of his source material.
Jeremy Podeswa is so filled with admiration for Anne Michaels’s novel Fugitive Pieces that he has created a screen version that is restrained, worthy and dull.
In Seventies’ Toronto, Jakob Beer (Stephen Dillane) is overwhelmed by guilt at surviving the Holocaust.
Flashbacks reveal his escape from wartime Poland, rescue by Greek academic Athos (Rade Sherbedzija) and grief over the loss of his family.
Coming to terms with the past and learning to live in the present is the basis of an unadventurous film that fails to touch the heart.
VERDICT 2/5
(Cert 15; 106 mins)