Irena's Vow (2023) User Reviews

so much courage

[ferguson-6 · 7/10 · 15 April 2024]

Greetings again from the darkness. This is based on the true story of Irena Gut Opdyke who, during WWII, vowed "If I could save a life, I would." Directed by Louise Archambault, it has been adapted for the screen by Dan Gordon, who was the playwright for the hit Broadway play. Cinema has been utilized many times over the years to shine a light on so many who acted altruistically in protecting Jews from the Nazis. Some of these heroes saved one life, while others saved hundreds. The courage of these folks deserves to be remembered.

The film begins in 1939 as Germany invades Warsaw. A bomb drops on the hospital where Irena (Sophie Nelisse) is working. She is Polish, not Jewish, so she is sent to work in a munitions factory. Her features get her recognized by senior German officer Rugmer (Dougray Scott, MY WEEK WITH MARILYN, 2011) who reassigns her to a supervisory role over Jews working in a hotel laundry. When Rugmer reassigns her again, this time to his personal villa as housekeeper, she learns the Jews in the laundry will be sent to a concentration camp.

We are fascinated by Irena's work to rescue and then hide these twelve people ... and she does so literally under the feet of Rugmer. Obviously, this puts herself and the hidden Jews in danger, but also Rugmer, who would surely be shot were they discovered in his home. Humor is scarce here. In fact, one of the most horrific scenes you'll ever view in a movie occurs. It's a devastating moment and one that won't soon be exorcised from my mind. In a rare display of levity, Irena befriends an elderly servant named Schultz (Andrzej Seweryn, SCHINDLER'S LIST, 1993) whose advice to her is to keep a low profile and 'know nothing'. Fans of the old "Hogan's Heroes" series will appreciate the connection.

The current issue of antisemitism gives this one a bit of contemporary feel, as does the abortion discussion amongst those hiding. At first, we can't help but wonder if this was for dramatic effect, although the answer becomes quite clear over the end credits. Sophie Nelisse was exceptional in THE BOOK THIEF, and she is terrific here as well, playing Irena Gut Opdyke who much later in life was honored with Righteous Among the Nations ... after being imprisoned for supporting Nazis. The epilogue spells out much of what happened, and all of it leaves us with the utmost respect for this quietly courageous woman.

A Fathom Events presentation on April 15 and April 16, 2024.

A Gut Story of another Holocaust Hero

[xnyrnkc · 7/10 · 16 April 2024]

"Irena's Vow" tells the story of a courageous Polish girl, Irena Gut Opdyke, who gets caught in a street roundup to be used as a laborer for the Nazis, who have taken over Poland. Irena, through her cunning and beauty, ends up as a housekeeper for an SS officer at a new villa, which was previously owned by a Jewish family. Through her humanity and cunning ways, Irena is able to rescue and house 11 Jewish workers from her previous place of work and transport them to the new Villa, where she hides them in the cellar and then another secret room, all under the roof of the SS Officer. To reveal any more would be considered a spoiler. I found this production very well acted and directed and location shots in Poland were very effective. The film lacked the emotional punch of a "Schindler's List" or "One Life", but the film is worth seeing and learning about another heroic person who endangered their own life to help Jewish victims from the death camps. For this, Irena was given the title of Righteous One in Israel, for saving Jewish lives.

GOING UNDERGROUND

[js-66130 · 7/10 · 24 April 2024]

Irena is a Polish woman caught in the early stages of Nazi occupation, enlisted to work for the new regime, who after witness to the horrors unleashed against the local Jews, decides to do everything in her power to save the victims. That is her vow. And this is her astounding true story.

Presented more as a theatre piece than movie, "Irena's Vow" seldom moves outdoors, save for a few market square scenes, focusing mainly on interiors, where Irena keeps mansion for a high ranking officer, and keeps a group of Jews hidden in the cellar.

The grit, grime and scuffy realities of war are absent here, as everything focuses on the characters and the carefully orchestrated set pieces. The clean and simple play presentation makes for a distancing film experience, which slowly dissolves as the story picks up the pace. And the story is the star here.

Scrambling to avoid detection under the enemy's roof, Irena shows cool resolve, clever problem solves, and total dedication to her cause. The surface sheen of the movie which never digs far enough to get a good grip on the characters, is finally broken with the post film credits, that feature photos and historic summaries of the aftermath. Then it finally hits home.

• hipCRANK.

An engaging story of a creative young woman negotiating complicated moral terrain

[steiner-sam · 7/10 · 26 April 2024]

It's a Canadian-Polish World War II drama set in Radom, Poland, from 1939 to 1944. It follows a pious young Polish woman, Irena Gut (Sophie Nélisse), who is training as a nurse in 1939 when Germany invades Poland. She works in a factory for a time but catches the eye of Major Rugemer (Dougray Scott), the senior Wehrmacht officer in the area, because she has German physical features and speaks good German. First, she works in a hotel serving German officers and supervises some Polish workers, including some Jews. She then becomes Major Rugemer's housekeeper in a large villa where he lives and entertains.

Irena uses her position to hide twelve Jews with whom she had worked in the factory in a hidden part of the villa's basement. The film follows her process of hiding the Jews, the threats posed by SS Officer Rokita (Maciej Nawrocki), and the consequences when Major Rugemer finally discovers she is hiding Jews in his villa.

"Irena's Vow" tells an engaging story of a creative young woman negotiating complicated moral terrain. The script smooths out some realities and likely exploits and exaggerates some incidents. Nélisse and Scott are both very convincing in their characters, but the story does seem to drag a bit from time to time and some dialogue seemed canned. Perhaps it could have been 15-20 minutes shorter.

A Very Different WW II Movie

[Danusha_Goska · 8/10 · 19 April 2024]

I've seen a lot of WW II movies. I've never seen one quite like this. "Irena's Vow" is the story of a real person, Irena Gut, a teenager when WW II began. She was a virgin, from a loving, well to do family. The war began, and she was gang raped, beaten, and left for dead by Red Army soldiers, famous for their rapes across Europe.

Nazis murdered her father. Her family split up She was alone and desperate. She never gave in to self pity, but dedicated herself to saving Jews from extermination. Her self sacrifice, her courage, and her ingenuity put the rest of us to shame. Holy Cow, what a woman.

Sophie Nelisse is almost supernatural in her ability to inhabit the young Irena Gut -- the real Irena's daughter said as much. Nelisse has said that she is not a Method actor, and she was able to shake off the difficulties of the part as soon as she heard "Cut." That's amazing.

I strongly recommend this film. Again, I can't thnk of anything else quite like it.

Courageous, risky, anxiety ridden, but not a totally great film

[malmevik77 · 7/10 · 18 May 2024]

Irena's Vow

Other than beating the tar out of Nazis, the other kind of WWII movies I enjoy are the ones that feature the unsung heroes that were able to rescue small groups of Jewish people. Irena's Vow features Irena Gut, a Polish woman forced into service by the occupying Germans in the city of Tarnopol (now in the Ukraine as Ternopol).

While working for Major Rügemer, she is assigned to supervise the laundry, and then as the housekeeper for his villa, seized from a Polish family. When she saw that all the people in the laundry were to be executed as part of Hitler's plan, she schemes to hide them in the very house that the Major now occupies.

If this wasn't a true story, I wouldn't have believed a word of this. It was so poorly acted, I felt like I was watching a modern film with costumes, instead of a film to transport us back in time to the mad era of Nazi insanity.

It becomes quite clear, sort of, early on that Rügemer has a thing for Irena, but it catapults forward when he discovers that there are Jews hiding in his home. The speed and transformation of superior to inferior to Polish lover was so fast, it just didn't make sense in the narrative.

Sophie Nélisse, as Irena, did a great job of emoting the compassion, the panic, the fear, the horror and the bravery all needed to survive. After witnessing a child get murdered on the street by yet another disgraceful "German", she really dove into her risky plan to save as many Jews as she could.

I wanted to love this due to the bravery in the depths of despair, but it wasn't completely well done. I don't know, nor can I put my finger on it, but I felt it could have been done better. I'm just glad it really happened and the people went on to live full lives. The notes in the credits were really sweet.

Schindler meets Parasite

[fvga_dix · 8/10 · 19 May 2024]

Went in blind and came out speechless. Had no idea it was a true story. So strong and compelling. The story is quite simple really. Schindler's List meets Parasite is the first thing that came to my mind when the movie ended.

The main character is so well cast, she tells the whole story with her eyes alone. Dougray Scott plays it very well, hadn't seen him since Mission Impossible 2! Overall I can't think of anyone that didn't convince me. I wouldn't cut any scene to make it shorter. Very gripping score as well.

6.3 does not do this film justice, believe me. I just hope this film will get more attention somehow.

Lessons should be learnt

[colinconversation · 19 May 2024]

The street scenes for this were filmed in Lublin old town 4 kilometres from Majdanek concentration camp where my wife's grandmother (Adela) was held as a prisoner for 18 months.

Adela was a nurse in the Polish secret army and was caring for a Polish soldier who was injured when the Gestapo arrived one day in her hometown of Kurów and went to her house and shot the soldier and arrested her.

She was taken to Lublin Gestapo headquarters and tortured for two weeks including being raped multiple times and they broke all of her fingers and her jaw and many of her ribs and was then sent to Majdanek concentration camp.

She died three years ago and after the church service we saw a strange man talking to my father-in-law and after a few mins, we saw that they were both crying and hugging each other.

It turns out that he came from the same town of Kurów and in the war he was very sick and the only available medicine was from the Germans and his mother made the desperate decision to trade the information on Adela for medicine for her son.

Grandmother Adela never spoke about how she was deceived until her death as she knew that the son, his mother and all of her family would be called traitors and could face massive problems in their lives.

She only mentioned the camp a few times in her life as it was too traumatic to speak about, but the times she did speak about it was about the disgusting things the Germans did to the Jews rather reminiscent of the street scene in this film where one German woman guard smashed a baby's head on the floor because it was crying too loud.

I try to understand the hatred between nations of modern times but Grandmother Adela taught us that the hatred should be directed towards the leaders of such terrible conflicts, not the people.

I was proud to name my daughter after her.