Most of us regard zoos as penitentiaries for animals. I riffed on this when I wrote about Cameron Crowe‘s We Bought A Zoo (i.e., We Bought A Jail). But Niki Caro‘s The Zookeeper’s Wife, a World War II drama set in Poland, isn’t about the glories of running a zoo but saving the lives of Jews who might have otherwise been exterminated by Nazis. Boilerplate: “A true story about the Warsaw Zoo keepers Jan and Antonina Żabiński (Johan Heldenbergh, Jessica Chastain) who saved many human and animal lives during World War II by hiding them in animal cages.” Written by Angela Workman, based on the non-fiction book of same name by Diane Ackerman, costarring Michael McElhatton and Daniel Bruhl.
