SECONDSCREEN
arrival of a messenger informing him that he has a long-lost twin brother, Dru, a story that his mother duly confirms. ‘You told me Dad died of disappointment after I was born,’ protests Gru.
But apparently not. In fact, according to Dru, he was a supervillain too and now Dru wants to return to the criminal family business. Can Gru be tempted?
With the minions effectively occupying a separate storyline for much of the film, there’s a lot going on here and it doesn’t all hang together perfectly.
Alone In Berlin (12A) is about the fourth World War II film in 12 months in which the dialogue is delivered in heavily accented English rather than subtitled German or Polish or Yiddish, or whatever it might have actually been. But it has such a powerful story and such a strong cast telling it that this is particularly easy to forgive.
Actor-turned-occasional-director Vincent Perez opens with a particularly powerful scene that sees a young German soldier fleeing for his life through a forest. Just as he is about to reach his own lines he is gunned down and dies. He is the only son of a working-class Berlin couple, Otto and Anna Quangel – played by Brendan Gleeson and Emma Thompson – and they, in their different ways, are devastated.
Berlin in 1940 couldn’t be a more dangerous place for Otto to begin his little act of treason, writing dozens of postcards that identify Hitler as a murderer and leaving them around the German capital for others to find. Small wonder that they soon come to the attention of the Berlin police and, when Otto’s brave campaign continues, the SS.
Based on a true story, this modest tale of doomed German resistance is as powerful as it is insightful and moving.