The film centers on Leyna (a remarkable Amandla Stenberg, courageous and fragile in equal measure), a biracial young girl who quietly lives with her protective and idealist mother Kerstin (Abbie Cornish, surprisingly forgettable) and her young brother in the countryside. But when a Nazi officer orders the sterilization of Leyna and confiscates her legal papers during a bracing inspection visit in 1944, Kerstin decides to move her family to Berlin, where they could keep their heads low and live in safety, at least temporarily. There, Leyna accidentally meets and slowly falls in love with Lutz (George MacKay, leaving an impression with a tricky part), a member of Hitler Youth, raised by a single father from the Nazi party. Lutz and Leyna gather in secret, listen to Billie Holiday records, and so on.
Age Appropriate For: 14+. The film is set during World War II and depicts Germany during the war and Holocaust, and there are many elements here that are violent, brutal, and graphic. Characters are racist, sexist, and use the n-word; soldiers threaten people with violence and sexual abuse, force them to strip naked in the streets, and shoot and kidnap people; children are forced to join the Hitler Youth, where they practice shooting guns; and the concentration camps are shown, where there is nudity (you see naked women forced to strip for inspection and to bathe), illness, death, and murder. Numerous characters die throughout the film. There is also a teen romance, where characters kiss and lose their virginity to each other.
Lutz recognizing his lover, comes upon her just in time to save her from execution by a brutal guard who has caught her sneaking a potato from the kitchen where she works. What happens during their subsequent clandestine meetings and the deteriorating conditions on the now not so distant battlefield I will leave for your discovery.
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