Netflix’s latest WWII drama, premiering October 12, 2025, with a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score and 16 million premiere hours, plunges viewers into the true story of a 13-year-old Jewish girl (Zuzanna Surowiak) in 1942 Poland who survives her family’s brutal m:urder by Nazis, erasing her identity to live under a false name among Ukrainian farmers, facing betrayal, fear, and humanity’s darkest hour in a saga hailed as “Netflix’s most powerful film in years.” Directed by The Zookeeper’s Wife’s Niki Caro and penned by Schindler’s List’s Steven Zaillian, the film—shot in Poland’s rural expanses from January to July 2025—captures her “impossible survival” with a rawness that’s left fans breathless.
The saga’s searing surge? Spellbinding: The opening scene thrusts the girl into chaos, her parents and siblings massacred in their Ternopil home, forcing her to flee with a forged Christian ID. Surowiak’s performance? A “masterclass in mettle,” her youthful resolve warping to weary watchfulness, unraveling a ripple of regrets where a “kind farmer” surfaces as sabotage. Co-stars deepen the drama: Olivia Colman as a “wistful neighbor” with a sting, Ben Whishaw as a “haunted villager” with a grudge, and Indira Varma as a “calculating” confidant with secrets. Zaillian’s script quivers with quips—“Names hide, but hearts don’t”—but the “brutal” brutality bites: a botched barn escape buries hope, a VVIP viper’s venom turns ally to assassin.
The “most powerful in years”? Seismic: Based on a Holocaust survivor’s 1990s memoir, the film weaves “pacy” pathos with “spooky” soundscapes, Caro’s direction a “gripping” gasp of “grim themes” in Ukraine’s “eerie ruin.” The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan raves “exquisite, pacy drama” with Surowiak’s “reliably raw” heart; The Independent’s Ed Power hails Colman’s “Icily Glamorous” grit and the “haunting” score. Variety’s Owen Gleiberman praises the “confidence, style, authenticity.” Skeptics? “Mired in misery,” but the 1-in-2 tear-to-triumph ratio hooks, BARB metrics outgunning The Jetty.
This isn’t war weepie; it’s a requiem for resilience, her “false name” a flare for the forgotten where loss lacerates and courage conquers. Her fight? Fearless. The darkness? Daunting. October 12? Not a film—a flood. Binge it; the betrayals blister, the bravery binds. Surowiak’s spirit? Spellbinding. The obsession? Overnight, inescapable.
