The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (12A)

Rubert Friend is effective as a young officer with a secret too hide

What would it be like to be the eight-year-old son of the Kommandant of a Nazi concentration camp? That's the question at the heart of this film, which starts off as a gentle fable about boyish innocence and ends with a sickening twist.

Based on an award-winning children's novel by John Boyne, this is - until the end - a worthy and pedestrian film dedicated to the uncontroversial proposition that Nazism and racism are wrong.

Writer-director Mark Herman (Little Voice, Brassed Off) is not the most visually inspired film-maker, but he directs neatly, and wisely adopts a child's eye view.

Despite the simplistic, predictable storyline, David Thewlis is strong as a devoted father who just happens to be a mass murderer, and Vera Farmiga is outstanding as his wife, blinding herself to her husband's true occupation until too late.

The naivety of their son is touchingly portrayed by Asa Butterfield, and Rupert Friend is effective as a young Nazi officer with a guilty family secret.

Despite the 12A certificate, I would regard this as most suitable for intelligent children aged ten to 12, who will be more prepared than adults to ignore its major implausibility - that security at concentration camps was ever this inefficient.

Verdict: The Holocaust for pre-teens