The film was a fundamentally good idea. It, however, failed to capture the sheer horror of the Holocaust. Perhaps because its target audience is young persons, we are spared much of the pure violence of men, women and children being executed at the very villages they were being grabbed up from, half of them not even made it to the trains, the site of the piles of gold teeth, glasses, clothing, shoes, at the vast numbers in the camps, at the horror of a sheer gray gown torn and tattered to wear, being forced to strip (men and women) and be laughed at and abused by the butt of a gun, the men, women and children being ordered to spit on the Torah and tear it up or they'd be executed, and at the cramming of four times the maximum number of people into a cattle car, to be hours and days on the rails... the tiny little rat eaten bunks, the muddy floors and the 'no makeup' sickly look of the camp inmates, struggling just to survive, no time to reminisce or socialize. The rape, the murder ongoing, random castration or killings for fun by the SS. The psychological games played by the camp guards to torture the minds of the inmates.These are all omissions that represent only touching the surface of the heavy deep waters of the Holocaust 'experience' that this film does not quite address. It's about tears and terror, true, but it could have gone a lot deeper into the horror.I give it an 8 for effort and hope. And for the transition of a young girl opening the door for the Prophet Elijah, to awaken in Nazi Germany as if a reminder of how grateful she might be to God for having not been forced to endure the cruelty of the Eugenics Master Race ideologies of certain financial Americans and their Nazi Germany partners, among them Paul Josef Goebbels and Adolf Hitler. The REALITY of the Holocaust was far, far worse than this movie tells.

This was yet another pickup out of the bargain basket...I'd never even heard of Kirsten Dunst nor Brittany Murphy...vacuous 'teen movies' don't appeal to me and here in Pussytiddy world, all celebrity 'news' is avoided like the plague...or dental plaque. Schindler's List is an all time favourite of mine but I knew not to expect a blockbuster here. I was struck by the authentic scenery...Eastern Europe has tended not to have changed much from the actual days of occupation by the Germans and then the USSR. I still find myself looking for satellite dishes...pvc windows...but everything looked suitably spartan. The story...well I'd not realised that we were going off on a fantasy trip, having merely glanced at the synopsis when rummaging through the bargain basket.Other reviewers have highlighted the small budget short comings like the camp being far too small and too sanitary, the guards not being numerous or nasty enough....hence Schindler's List Lite. This IS a 'teen movie' after all, an introduction to what the Nazis did, but without every gruesome detail of Schindler's List....fetid latrines, rats, corpses, all were missing here. With a '12' rating in the UK, it was never going to be 'detailed' regarding brutality.I looked up on Google about the two stars and now I'm afraid that I couldn't watch it again without thinking about what happened to the once beautiful Brittany Murphy. Schindler's List has made this reviewer cry when Oskar breaks down with guilt. This film isn't really aimed at hard boiled Pussytiddies, but even I thought it was a clever movie and for kids of 12 and over it has a lot of merit.

I thought that the book was better then the movie. If the movie was more like that book i think that it would have been better. The movie had left out some details from the book that i think were pretty important. For example in the movie Rivka was Hannah's cousin and in the book Rivka was just a girl that Hannah had meet in the camp. Another thing is that in the book there was a few chapters on how they were stuck on the train for 4 days with out anything to drink or eat and in the movie the left out that whole part. That's why i think that the book was a lot better then the movie. I think that if they had made the movie just like the book it would have been a lot better.

I liked this movie much better than Schindlers List. To me that movie was way too violent. Plus I really like Kirsten and Brittney. It's about this rich girl who doesn't want to celebrate the Jewish holidays with her family and drinks to much wine at her aunt's house. When she is asked to open the door for Elijah she goes back in time to learn about what really happened to the Jewish people. What was really sad was how her character died to save her friend that was sick and was said to be sent to the gas chamber. I think it is very sad what they had to go through. Much worse than what blacks had to go through and you don't hear them whining. I would recommend this movie along with The Diary Of Ann Frank. You won't regret it.