Zoo

Colin McIvor's family-friendly movie "Zoo" takes the true story of Denise Austin, a keeper at the Belfast Zoo during the World War II years who went to the extraordinary lengths of escorting a young elephant named Sheila to her own garden each night to keep her safe from German blitzes.

In the film's retelling, the protagonist is a schoolboy named Tom (Art Parkinson, "Game of Thrones") and the elephant is named Buster. Tom's father, an employee of the zoo, is sent away to fight in the war; Tom, who loves the zoo's inhabitants, keeps up his habit of visiting with and checking on the animals. As happened in real life, the Army kills a number of animals at the zoo - including a lion, a tiger, a lynx, and other large animals that might pose a danger to the town's human population if German bombs should happen to hit the zoo and free them. Concerned that the army will return to slaughter more animals - including Buster - Tom determines to spirit the young elephant out of harm's way.

The film builds its characters and plot around the obvious problem of how and where to store an animal as large as a baby elephant. The solution arrives in the character of Mrs. Austin (Penelope Wilton), an eccentric woman some of the local children spurn as a "witch" because she cares for a large collection of animals in her home.

Other characters are made to order for the purposes of the story and its message. At school, Tom is tormented by a pair of bullies, but he's also befriended by Jane (Emily Flain). Tom and Jane manage to recruit the stronger and better-natured of the bullies, a boy named Pete (Ian O'Reilly); with him comes Pete's younger brother, Mickey (James Stockade), a little person whose fearlessness and spark prove invaluable as the kids pull off their caper despite the zoo's sturdy fence, a patrol enforcing curfew, and other obstacles.

With a lightness of touch that rival's Disney's skill at such things, "Zoo" lightly addresses topics like death, alcoholism, and bullying. The film's structure and sense of story logic are questionable, but children will find the combination of animals, derring-do, and wartime peril thrilling.