Jessica Chastain is a lifesaver in the Zookeeper’s Wife trailer

Jessica Chastain in The Zookeeper's Wife

by James White |
Published on

There's never really a bad time for an uplifting true story about basic humanity triumphing in the face of a terrible situation. So here's the first trailer for Jessica Chastain-starring drama The Zookeeper's Wife.

Directed by Niki Caro, The Zookeeper's Wife adapts Diane Ackerman's 2007 bestseller, which chronicles the real-world efforts of Antonia and Jan Zabinski, who helped to save many people in World War II Poland.

Chastain plays Antonia, who is happy running the Warsaw Zoo with her husband (Johan Heidenbergh) and taking care of injured animals. But when the city was bombed in 1939 and many of her charges were killed, she decides to turn the place into a pig farm to help provide food for the locals. And with the city falling under Nazi control and the local Jews under threat, Antonia saw a chance to offer refuge to those who were being thrown from their homes and killed. All that under the nose of Nazi zoologist Lutz Heck (Daniel Bruhl).

“It was a wonderful story about not only animal nature vs. human nature but about radical compassion and humanity,” Caro told USA Today. "The Zabinskis sheltered Jews at tremendous risk to themselves for a very simple reason: because it was the right thing to do."

The Zookeeper's Wife will be out in the UK on 5 May next year.

Just so you know, whilst we may receive a commission or other compensation from the links on this website, we never allow this to influence product selections - read why you should trust us