Running time: 94 mins. Starring: Asa Butterfield, David Thewlis, Vera Farmiga, Amber Beattie, Jack Scanlon, Rupert Friend, David Heyman, Richard Johnson, Sheila Hancock. Director: Mark Herman.

BASED on the best-selling novel by John Boyne, The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas re-lives the horrors of World War II from the perspective of an eight-year-old German boy, who is blissfully unaware of the vital role played by his Nazi officer father in the unfolding tragedy.

The subject matter is incredibly bleak and the final act of Mark Herman’s well-crafted film sets in motion a chain of events that must, inevitably, culminate in tragedy.

Despite the myriad horrors and our tearful response, Herman’s script reveals moments of beauty and hope through the eyes of its young, idealistic hero, who will become a footnote in one of the darkest chapters in European history.

Bruno arrives home from school to discover that his commandant father (David Thewlis) has been promoted and the entire family must relocate.

While his mother and older sister embrace the fresh start, Bruno is desperately sad and lonely.

Hungry for adventure, Bruno sneaks into the woods and stumbles upon what appears to be a farm, and a young boy in striped pyjamas called Shmuel. Separated by a barbed-wire fence, the two boys become friends, until Bruno learns the truth: that Shmuel is a Jew and the farm is actually a concentration camp under the control of his father.

The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas refracts the unimaginable suffering and tragedy of the Holocaust through the prism of one family’s experiences.

The two young actors at the centre of the drama, Asa Butterfield and Jack Scanlon, both deliver remarkably natural and unaffected performances as the friends who should be sworn enemies.

Their scenes together at the wire fence, playing draughts or concocting hare-brained schemes are sensitively handled by Herman, who lulls us into a false sense of security before a finale that doesn’t quite deliver a knockout emotional blow.