Fugitive Pieces

Adapted from Anne Michaels's award-winning novel, Fugitive Pieces follows a traumatised boy named Jakob (played by Robbie Kay and later Stephen Dillane) who is rescued from Nazi-occupied Poland by an archaeologist. The film tracks his journey, first to Greece, then to Canada, and his struggle to come to terms with what happened to his family during the war.

Edward Porter, the Times: Jakob's journey towards peace of mind involves lots of lyrical philosophising, which presumably comes straight from the film's source novel, and doesn't lend itself to dramatisation, despite Dillane's typically intelligent performance. [Director Jeremy] Podeswa means to give us a moving account of love's healing powers, but, wearied by the film's middlebrow dullness, all I could think was: what about Holocaust survivors who haven't been lucky enough to find romance? (Verdict: two stars out of five)

Wally Hammond, Time Out: The fine Serbian actor Rade Serbedzija... is highly moving as the stoic archaeologist who saves the boy in Poland and takes him to safety in Greece and later Canada. Podeswa is to be congratulated, too, for his restraint in the film's (many) moments of pathos, as is composer Nikos Kypourgos for his nurturing, understated score, which helps make this 'conversation with the past' one of the most delicate, approachable and rewarding Holocaust movies of recent years. (Verdict: four stars out of six) ·