“Survivor” lifted by Ben Foster performance
★★¼5
HBO and HBO. 129 minutes. On
Ben Foster disappears into the role of Harry Haft in “The Survivor,” a thoughtful biographical drama film landing this week on HBO after making its debut at September’s Toronto International Film Festival.
First, the disappearance is largely figurative, the actor of “Hell or High Water” fame implementing a convincing accent and certain mannerisms to portray the Polish Holocaust survivor-turned-boxer who in 1953 challenged heavyweight champ Rocky Marciano in the ring.
However, for the Barry Levinson-directed movie, Foster almost literally disappears into the scenes in which he portrays Haft during his time at Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp at which numerous atrocities were committed. Haft was given a choice between fighting for sport or being executed, and the actor shed significant weight to portray him as one of the compound’s many emaciated prisoners.
Forster’s striking appearance adds to the power of this aspect of the film.
In its middle timeline, Haft is plagued by the horrific memories of the experience as he tries to build a post-war life for himself. He also works to learn whether a young woman he briefly dated — before Nazi soldiers snatched her on the street in front of him — also survived World War II.
While “The Survivor” — the release of which coincides with Yom Hashoah, aka Holocaust
Remembrance Day — may not reside with classic Holocaust dramas, it succeeds in telling a compelling true-life story, one that may land harder for viewers with close ties to those who suffered or lost their lives during the Holocaust.
Levinson, whose myriad directorial credits include classics such as 1982’s “Diner,” 1987’s “Good Morning, Vietnam” and 1988 Academy Award winner “Rain Man” and more recent efforts including “What Just Happened” (2008) and “Rock the Kasbah” (2015), uses a parallel story structure with “The Survivor,” the film alternating between three periods of Haft’s life, the last featuring him as a family man in the ’60s.
Levinson and director of photography George Steel use black-and-white for the scenes taking place at the prison camp and give the film a grainy look overall. The entire tale has an appropriately stark feel.
One day at Auschwitz, Haft repeatedly punches a Nazi guard who treats his friend horribly after the latter realizes his wife has been killed. Instead of letting the guard punish or kill Haft, a superior officer, Dietrich Schneider (a borderline-spellbinding Billy Magnussen of “No Time to Die”), offers Haft the opportunity to fight for the entertainment of the other Nazis in the camp.
In his first bout, during which Schneider has money riding on him, Haft realizes the price for losing a boxing match is as severe as the cost would have been to him were he to have refused the offer.
Thus, it’s understandable that when we see Haft trying to make it as a pro fighter after the war, some moments in the ring do harm to him that extends beyond physical pain.
He wants to make a name for himself in part because he hopes his career will bring him to the attention of the aforementioned young woman. That’s largely why he endeavors to earn a bout with the seemingly unbeatable Marciano — and why he agrees to share his Auschwitz experience with a newspaperman (Peter Sarsgaard, “The Lost Daughter”), even if some readers won’t agree with his choice to fight other prisoners.
He also enlists the help of an office that tracks down Holocaust survivors, and an employee there, Miriam Wofsoniker (Vicky Krieps, “Old”), takes an interest in him.
Writer Justine Juel Gillmer (“The Wheel of Time”) adapted the screenplay from the book “Harry Haft” by Alan Scott Haft, the subject’s son, and the movie’s final stretch sees Harry struggling as a father. He does not want young Alan (Kingston Vernes) to know the horrors he experienced but is desperate for him to be tough enough for what life may throw at him as a Jewish person.
After a dip in momentum, this final stretch is a fairly effective bit of filmmaking from
Levinson.
While the director can be credited with several strong moments throughout the film, “The Survivor” belongs to Foster, who previously worked with Levinson on 1999’s well-received “Liberty Heights.” According to this movie’s production notes, Foster lost more than 60 pounds for the Auschwitz scenes — involving five months of deprivation and high-caloric training — before regaining the weight and training for the postwar boxing scenes.
It’s not just the dramatic physical changes that impress, however. Foster (“3:10 to Yuma,” “The Messenger”) brings a laudable subtle approach to the character, matching Levinson’s lessis-more approach.
That said, and despite all the reasons it’s worth two hours of your time, you may find yourself wishing there were, in fact, just a bit more to “The Survivor.”