Review: 'Truth & Treason' is a thoughtful, and unusually timely, story of a German teen showing resistance to the Nazis.
Not many people know the story of Helmuth Hübener, a German teen who worked in the shadows to resist the Nazi regime during World War II — and many of those who have told it are, like Hübener, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
One member of the faith, Matt Whitaker, directed and co-wrote “Truth & Treason,” a surprisingly tough-minded movie that tells Hübener’s story with a measured tone and strong central performances.
Hübener, played by young British actor Ewan Horrocks, is a teen hanging out with his pals, Karl (Ferdinand McKay) and Rudi (Daf Thomas), riding their bikes around Hamburg and avoiding hanging out with their Hitler Youth classmates — not necessarily because of their classmates’ fascist beliefs, but because those classmates are simply jerks. When Hübener gets a job as a gofer at City Hall, it’s not out of ambition but because his stern stepfather (Sean Mahon) made him do it.
At City Hall, Hübener gains access to a basement room filled with banned books. On the sly, he starts reading some of them, and quickly comes to learn that the propaganda spouted by Hitler and his followers is all a bunch of lies. Hübener is further driven — “radicalized” is the term some today might use — when he gets an illegal shortwave radio and listens to the BBC, and when his friend Salomon (Nye Occomore), a converted Latter-day Saint but still seen by the regime as Jewish, suddenly disappears.
Hübener starts small, typing small pamphlets denouncing Hitler and sticking them in mailboxes around Hamburg. Over time, he enlists Karl and Rudi, and the pamphlets spread around the city — ultimately drawing the attention of a Nazi official (Rupert Evans) determined to crush this paper rebellion.
Whitaker, who co-wrote the 2003 World War II drama “Saints and Soldiers,” has been fascinated with Hübener’s story for decades. He even directed a documentary about Hübener in 2002, in which he interviewed the real Karl-Heinz Schnibbe, Hübener’s friend. That dedication is evident in the intense and evenhanded approach he brings to the story.
For example, the movie doesn’t show Latter-day Saints as always doing good; notably, Hübener’s bishop (Daniel Betts), in the early going, is shown as overly pliant to German law, even putting a sign on the meetinghouse door barring Jews from entering. On the other hand, Whitaker spares a moment to consider the Nazi investigator as a family man, kind to his children, not a cardboard villain — and that approach pays off, particularly in Evans’ startling performance.
Whitaker closes out “Truth & Treason” with a quote from Alexei Navalny, the recently martyred Russian resistance leader, that says “sometimes the greatest act of rebellion is to simply speak the truth.” It’s clear Whitaker has more on his mind than a totalitarian regime that’s been gone for 80 years. The question is whether the movie’s target audience will make the connection to current events.
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‘Truth & Treason’
★★★
Opens Friday, October 17, in theaters. Rated PG-13 for strong violent content, bloody images, thematic elements, and smoking. Running time: 122 minutes.