A confident, largely unsentimental adaptation of John Boyne's young adult novel, writer-director Mark Herman's film has a new twist on the Holocaust novel. It's seen from a child's eye, but not from inside a concentration camp or ghetto.

The eight-year-old protagonist loses his friends when the family moves from Berlin to the country, to live near a "farm". He's lonely and bored, and his bedroom window is boarded up. Like most boys of his age, he's a natural explorer, who gradually realises the truth behind his father's job – he's an official in charge of Auschwitz. It's a simple, powerful story about friendship across forbidden boundaries.

The child roles are very well played, but it's Vera Farmiga, as the boy's mother, who brings it to life, deftly tracing a changing character as she realises what's going on. "She chooses to be oblivious" is how Farmiga puts it in an interview. In Chicago, it shared the Audience Choice award with Slumdog Millionaire, and makes a stark contrast to that feelgood hit.