The Optimist – Must-See Movie Review Now Playing: Auschwitz Survivor’s New Relationship Brings His Story To The World

The Optimist – Must-See Movie Review Now Playing: Auschwitz Survivor’s New Relationship Brings His Story To The World

Lest anyone wants to forget what Nazi Germany and the concentration camps were like, this movie will help to continually remind us all. Starting at the beginning, Herbert Heller finds out that doctors have done all they can and that he should get his life in order. Oh. That prompts a phone call to a woman who doesn’t usually take survivor’s stories anymore, but she agrees to meet him. When she does, she has the fortuitousness to notice that he immediately connects with a young woman she is caring for in a kind of informal sober house situation.

This girl is intriguing to Herbert from the start, largely because he saw her face when she was wheeled into the emergency room as he was leaving the same hospital. He recognizes her and sees the scar she tries to hide. This girl is very much into photography, and appears to be a recovering alcoholic. He decides to make an agreement with her: I’ll tell you about the scar on my arm if you tell me about the healing wound on your neck (which was under a bandage).

She agrees, and his story comes pouring out of him, moment by moment, the darkest time in humanity’s present history. The time when swaths of people – Jews, gypsies, mentally disabled persons – were denied even the care and dignity one would give to a dog, rather treated more like cows destined for slaughter. No burials, just mass graves. No medical care and just the barest minimum of food. And I’m not exaggerating. If you don’t know much about that dark time, there are two important books on the topic we have reviewed – one factual and frightening, the other inspiring and funny: How Could This Happen? and Gangsters vs. Nazis.

In this film, which is poignant, sad, and joyful in many ways, we learn about his own guilt, which he shares with this younger person whose life has been tragic due to her own choices. His was as well. You see, he chose to follow his whole family to Auschwitz, instead of remaining alone at Terezin, where there were fewer horrors to witness as this was a decoy to fool the Red Cross. And he was almost the only one to survive the ordeal. He was not on the list to go to Auschwitz, but he begged to go, and didn’t regret it.

He spent time with his family in their own last days, while they labored in the prison camps of the Nazis, doing dangerous work with little food or rest, and the medical care was understood to mean just torture. It was run by the infamous Dr. Mengler, whom everyone knows, found delight and glee in the suffering of others. Yes, there are and have always been people like him. But he was an exceptionally cruel individual. He was the one who decided if someone lived or died. If they were shot and dumped in a ditch, if they worked on the roads, or if they were in the makeshift tent medical center.

When his family was first taken from their home, they were walked through the street with all the others being rounded up and marched through the streets in front of their neighbors, no one saying anything. There was such an incredible environment of fear, and many of the Jews living in the area knew they were coming for them. They had heard the rhetoric in the speeches on the radio. But Herbert’s father wanted to pretend, and it cost his family everything.

This movie is a poignant exploration of what happened in Nazi Germany. Neighbors watched their friends be led away, packed into trains, in most cases never to be seen again. They allowed it to happen, but they were afraid. Anyone who spoke up about what they saw was either taken to a concentration camp themselves (such as Bonhoeffer) or they were tortured, hanged, or beheaded. And then, similarly to now, they had a court system in Germany – but the judges always sided with the Nazis (this might seem familiar to those watching recent SCOTUS decisions).

Perhaps most moving is the intergenerational aspect. Herbert is an older man, in the last years of his life. Abbey is a teenage girl in high school going through some very difficult and tense situations where no one understands or can reach her. Until Abbey, Herbert did, indeed, feel guilty for being the one who survived. Why him? Why not his father or brother?

Advertisement

But through this relationship, he comes to realize that he survived to tell his story and inspire others. And so he spent the last years of his life doing just that. A few pieces of this from real life with the non-actor Heller in video footage demonstrates this full circle beautifully at the end.

This film is highly recommended, and I would give it five stars! See it and you won’t regret it.

THE OPTIMIST features a powerhouse performance from Stephen Lang, who returns to the big screen after reprising his role in James Cameron’s highly anticipated Avatar: Fire & Ash. Lang stars opposite Elsie Fisher,the breakout talent of Eighth Grade, in a sweeping, intergenerational story that explores trauma, memory, and the profound capacity of the human spirit to heal. The making of the film was a 10+ year effort on behalf of Jeanine Thomas who met Herbert and developed the story before his passing.

Set against the majestic landscapes of Northern California, the film centers on the unexpected bond between an ailing Holocaust survivor and a troubled teen. For more than sixty years, Children’s store owner Herbert Heller (Lang) has lived with the weight of the horrors he endured as a 15-year-old imprisoned in Terezin and Auschwitz. As illness forces him to confront the silence he has kept—even from his own family—he forms a surprising friendship with Abbey (Fisher), a teenager navigating her own emotional fractures. Through their growing connection, Herbert is inspired to finally share his truth, opening a path toward empathy, forgiveness, and renewal.

What unfolds is a cinematic experience of rare intimacy and scope: a story anchored in lived history yet soaring with contemporary urgency and hope.

Banner Image: Movie poster. Image Credit – Falco Ink