Jessica Chastain Turns Lifesaver in The Zookeeper's Wife
Lord knows we could all do with an uplifting story about humanity triumphing in the face of insurmountable odds, so here’s the Jessica Chastain-starring drama The Zookeeper's Wife, to raise all our spirits.
Directed by Niki Caro, The Zookeeper's Wife adapts Diane Ackerman's 2007 bestseller, which chronicles the real-world efforts of Antonia and Jan Zabinski, who helped to save many people in World War II Poland. Chastain plays Antonia, the titular Zookeeper’s wife who is happy running the Warsaw Zoo with her husband (Johan Heidenbergh) and taking care of injured animals.
However, when the city is bombed during 1939 and many of the animals under her care are killed, she to turn the place into a pig farm to help provide food for the locals. And with the city falling under Nazi control and the local Jews under threat, Antonia saw a chance to offer refuge to those who were being thrown from their homes and killed. All that under the nose of Nazi zoologist Lutz Heck (Daniel Bruhl).
Speaking to USA Today, Caro said: “It was a wonderful story about not only animal nature vs. human nature but about radical compassion and humanity. The Zabinskis sheltered Jews at tremendous risk to themselves for a very simple reason: because it was the right thing to do."
The Zookeeper's Wife will be out in cinemas in the UK on May, 5th.
