By: Andrew Wing

The Survivor is a 2021 biographical drama film, directed by Barry Levinson (Good Morning, Vietnam, Rain Man), from a screenplay by Justine Juel Gillmer. Ben Foster (Hell or High Water, Leave No Trace) stars as Harry Haft, a real-life survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he boxed fellow inmates to survive. Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread, Old), Billy Magnussen (Game Night, Aladdin), Peter Sarsgaard (Flightplan, An Education), John Leguizamo (Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!), and Danny DeVito (Batman Returns, Deck the Halls) co-star.

The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2021 and was released on HBO on April 27, 2022.

THE GOOD

I have been looking forward to reviewing The Survivor for a long time now ever since I first heard about it. It was the first film from the legendary director Barry Levinson since 2015, and it was starring one of my favorite actors working currently in Ben Foster as Harry Haft, so I was pumped. Obviously, I was eager to learn more about this incredible true story that I had surprisingly never heard about before, but I’d be lying if I said anything got me as excited as Foster’s inclusion in this project. I mean, this has Academy Award Best Actor potential written all over it, and with my obsession with the Academy Awards, I knew I couldn’t miss this once it came out. And a long seven months after premiering at Toronto, The Survivor hit HBO Max, and you are damn right I checked it out first thing. But with all that said, was Ben Foster’s inclusion enough to have this film not only be a great film but live up to my incredibly high expectations for it? Keep reading to find out!

Well, unfortunately, the film didn’t, and I will talk more about why it didn’t work in the bad section, but there was one thing that exceeded my expectations. And that one thing was Ben Foster’s performance as Harry Haft. As I said, I had never heard about Harry Haft and his incredible true story, but Foster clearly did his research and he made a point of emphasis in his acting to show the toll it took on Haft as he went through these impossible challenges. Those in charge of this film really don’t sugarcoat anything, which I liked, and Foster went through the wringer (pun intended) in this film. On the same note, when discussing Foster’s performance, he truly gave us some beautiful things about the character, and those were the moral ambiguities that both he and we are faced with throughout the film. All in all, Foster undoubtedly honorably serves the man he is portraying and nothing is more important than that as an actor when playing a real person.

Continuing with Foster, I don’t know if he will be eligible for the 95th Academy Awards with this being a 2021 release, but I would love to see him tab his first Best Actor nomination for this because he damn well deserves it. For starters, the film covers three decades of Harry Haft’s life, starting with him before WW2, then going to him in the concentration camps, then after the war in New York when he is boxing, to ultimately a man in his 50s, and all of those four different timelines required Foster to give a completely different performance which is insanely impressive. Another thing was you could tell this wasn’t an impression to Foster like most other biopic performances are, but rather, Foster found the man inside himself. He showed that Haft was a man who wasn’t able to get away from his past, and he also did a great job at portraying the war fatigue that Haft dealt with. And lastly, Foster went as far as he physically could to inform the rest of Haft’s life by losing as much as 62 pounds to get to his recorded weight when he was in the concentration camps, and also put on 50 pounds after that for when he portrayed Haft in the boxing ring. I mean case closed honestly, with that alone Foster is deserving of a nomination and I really hope he can get it.

Now that I have addressed the best part of the film which was easily Foster’s performance, let’s hit on some of the other things I liked about The Survivor. First, I really liked Justine Juel Gillmer’s screenplay. I feel like some people will say it’s easier to write a biographical screenplay as opposed to any other screenplay, but it’s still super challenging to do because it can’t be easy determining which parts of someone’s life you want to write about the most. And with that said, Gillmer did a great job in my mind. I loved the dialogue she provided for later in Harry’s life as I found it to be super emotional and moving, and most importantly, I liked how she made it a point of emphasis to show that hope alone can get you through these tough times, and just how important it is to never lose hope.

Also, when it comes to things I liked about The Survivor, we got to address some of the other performances from the supporting cast. I wasn’t a fan of all of them, but I did enjoy what we got from both John Leguizamo and Danny DeVito. We see them only during the time when Harry is boxing, but they played their roles perfectly and I would love to see both of them have another role in the future where they are either a boxer’s trainer or mentor. They were good, but when it comes to the supporting performances, Billy Magnussen absolutely stole the show as he played the Nazi general at Auschwitz. I’d guarantee that this won’t be the last time we see him play a Nazi in a film because he crushed his role and his accent was flawless too.

Lastly, if you have been paying attention to the pictures throughout this review, the film is in color in Haft’s life after Auschwitz, and in black and white for both his time before the camps and while he was in the concentration camps. And you know I’m a sucker for some black and white cinematography, so I got to give a shout-out to the cinematographer George Steel. This was the first I’ve seen of him, but it was so well done and I look forward to seeing what he does next. Also, the editing that was done by Douglas Crise for this was really really good. I liked how well shot the boxing scenes were as we didn’t get too much of a shaky-cam, and after looking through his past work, I shouldn’t have been surprised that I liked his editing as he was the editor for the 2014 Best Picture-winning film Birdman that is one of my all-time favorites. And just one more thing, Hans Zimmer’s score was as great as you would expect any Zimmer score to be as he is the GOAT composer in my eyes.

THE BAD

When it comes to The Survivor, there is no debating that it is a good film, but it wasn’t the great film I was expecting it to be. Now it wasn’t due to Foster’s performance that I feel that way as I have already addressed, but I really think it falls on director Barry Levinson. Now Levinson is now eighty years old and there is no denying that he is a legendary director, but this will probably be one of his more forgettable pieces of work despite Foster’s amazing performance. Now I said I liked Gillmer’s screenplay and I did, but the inclusion of and Levinson’s decision to hop around from different timelines in Haft’s life hurt the film a little I think. It wasn’t terrible, but I think it made the film feel uneven if that makes sense, and I think their decision to do that also resulted in the film running too long.

Aside from the film’s uneven feel and long runtime, there was nothing else that really dragged the film down for me. I will say though that I wasn’t extremely pleased with what we got from both Vicky Krieps and Peter Sarsgaard. Now Sarsgaard’s character had a small role in the film, but I just felt like we got nothing out of it which was unfortunate as he is a very good actor. As with Krieps, and maybe I’m an outlier here, but I just wasn’t buying what she was selling. I’m surprised that I am saying that because she is a fabulous actress that I loved in Phantom Thread, but for all the emotional scenes towards the end with her character and Foster’s, Foster carried as I thought she didn’t bring enough emotion to her performance.

THE VERDICT

Behind a transformative performance from Ben Foster that is arguably the best of his career, The Survivor is a solid biographical drama that tells the story of Harry Haft, a real-life survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he boxed fellow inmates to survive.

Foster’s physical and emotional commitment to the role makes me think it is the best of his career. The story we got from Justine Juel Gillmer was powerful and the film was very nicely crafted thanks to Douglas Crise’s editing, George Steel’s stunning cinematography, and Hans Zimmer’s score, but some of the directorial choices made by Barry Levinson gave the film an uneven feeling and a long runtime that left more to be desired.