WHITE BIRD: A Wonder Story
NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by David G
New York City, Present Day: Julian Albans (Bryce Gheisar), Auggie’s bully in the film Wonder, is struggling to fit in at his new school. He comes home from school one day to find his Grandmère Sara (Helen Mirren) has arrived for a visit from Paris to attend a retrospective of her work at The Met. Though Julian has a distant relationship with his absent parents, he is warm with Grandmère and opens up to her about his struggles to fit in. Julian explains to her that the lesson he learned from his experience with Auggie is to try to blend in and be normal. Grandmère tells Julian that he should not want to be normal and decides to tell him the story of her childhood growing up in the French countryside and how the village she grew up in was magical and peaceful and full of nature…
France, 1942: Sara Blum (Ariella Glaser) lives with her father, Max (Ishai Golan), a surgeon, and mother, Rose (Olivia Ross), a mathematics professor, in a middle-class apartment in a Nazi-occupied town. Sara visits the local cinema with friends, where her classmate Julien Beaumie (Orlando Schwerdt) works as a projectionist. Sara’s friends and classmates all tease Julien as he suffers from polio and walks with a crutch, and Grandmère admits she didn’t even know his name as everyone referred to him as The Crab because of the way he walked.
Sara focuses on her studies and her art; one day, her teacher, Ms. Petitjean (Patsy Ferran), encourages her to share a drawing she has made of a bird in the window and to pursue being an artist, stressing the importance of imagination. Sara goes to a local bakery where the store owner is hesitant to serve her and refuses to accept her money. That night, Sara learns that Rose has been fired from her school because she is Jewish. Rose and Max argue at dinner as Rose wants to remain optimistic, but Max no longer believes they are safe and that the Nazis view them as second-class citizens.
After class, one day, Julien returned a notebook that Sara had left behind, and her friends teased her that Julien had a crush on her. Vincent (Jem Matthews), Sara’s classmate and actual crush, asks to see her drawings and appears to return her feelings before insulting her for being Jewish. Sara observes a puppet show in a park making fun of Jewish people as hatred in the town continues to grow. Max convinces Rose that the family needs to leave, and they tell Sara that it will not be for too long. Max instructs Sara to continue to wear her winter boots to school until they depart.
Time passes, and Sara goes to school each day and secretly changes her shoes when she arrives. Sara is pulled out of class one day when Ms. Petitjean receives a warning that Jews are being rounded up in town and the Nazis are on their way to the school; Ms. Petitjean lends Sara her coat, and Sara joins a group of students as their headmaster Pastor Luc (Stuart McQuarrie) helps them escape into the nearby forest. Vincent alerts the Nazis to the plan, and the officers begin chasing after them. Sara manages to evade capture while all the other Jewish classmates and Ms. Petitjean are rounded up; the Nazi commander kills the boy who had been helping them by shooting him in front of the students. Julien finds Sara and offers to help her escape by leading her into the sewers where his father works. Sara reluctantly follows Julien, and he leads her safely to his property, where he tells her she can hide safely in the barn without detection. Julien leaves to tell his parents, and Sara learns Julien’s name for the first time. In the present, Julian is surprised to learn he was intentionally named after Julien because the name meant so much to Grandmère.
Julien’s mother, Vivienne (Gillian Anderson), and father, Jean-Paul (Jo Stone-Fewings), show up and try to help make Sara comfortable in the barn loft; they also promise to help track down Max and Rose. Sara is instructed to remain hidden due to Julien’s nosy neighbors, who are suspected Nazi informants. One night, Julian brings Sara art supplies, and Sara apologizes for never treating Julien with respect. Weeks pass by, and no one is able to track down Sara’s parents; in the evenings, Julien gives Sara school lessons and fills her in on classmate gossip. Vincent and other local boys are enlisted to join the local Nazis and given orders to patrol down and report suspicious behavior.
Julien learns that his boss, George, at the theater is working with a freedom-fighting group, and he requests his help in obtaining forged documents to get Sara out of France to safety in Switzerland. Julien tells Sara he would go with her if he wouldn’t slow her down and that he’s always wanted to go to Paris; Sara plays pretend and uses shadow puppets to give Julien the feeling of traveling; Julien struggles to play along but is eventually able to share in the fantasy. 3 weeks pass by as the two continue to imagine adventures together and grow closer, bonding over their love of film.
Julien goes to the theater and discovers it has been ransacked by Vincent and his Nazi patrol. Julien hides as the men destroy the rest of the theater, breaking chairs and shooting the screen. Sara consoles Julien and shares a flip book with him that contains sketches of the white bird Sara envisions when she needs comfort and hope. George is taken by the Nazis, and Sara’s escape is put on hold. The seasons pass as the Nazi occupation grows, and Sara continues to live in the barn and grows closer to Julien due to their shared experience with hatred. Sara begins to develop romantic feelings toward Julien.
Vincent catches Julien stealing Sara’s sketchbook from Pastor Luc’s and follows him back to the barn; Vincent and his comrades harshly beat Julien to the ground; he fights back and gets them to leave by waking up the bats in the barn. Sara leaves her hiding spot to help, but Julien gets angry that she left the loft and put him and his family at risk. Julien refuses to visit Sara for the next few weeks, and Vivienne takes his place to help Sara out. One night, Julien returns, and both he and Sara apologize for the way they have behaved; Julien acknowledged he was ashamed to appear weak in front of Sara due to his disability.
The seasons change, and Spring arrives; Sara has now been in hiding for over a year. Julien, Vivienne, and Jean-Paul come to the barn one day to celebrate Sara’s birthday. Julien gifts Sara a carved wooden bird, and the two share a dance. The evening is interrupted by a broadcast that the Allies have freed a town in Italy, and everyone is excited that it might signal the end of the war. Later that night, Julien sneaks Sara out of the barn for a taste of freedom in the forest; Julien confesses his feelings for Sara, and they kiss. In the present, Grandmère says she wished she had told Julian that she loved him that night.
The next morning, Julien feels elated and decides to take the main path to school. On Vincent’s orders, Julien is apprehended by the Nazi police, and Vincent discovers Sara’s sketchbook in Julien’s satchel. A local man alerts Jean-Paul of Julien’s arrest. Vincent goes on his own to search for Sara, and he opens fire in the barn. Sara escapes into the woods. Vincent chases after her and catches her in a clearing, but a pack of wolves appears and violently kills Vincent before retreating. Sara returns to the Beaumie’s home to look for Vivienne and Jean-Paul and goes to their neighbor’s home for help despite the risk; the neighbors threaten Sara at gunpoint but quickly reveal that they are allies and themselves are housing a local rabbi and his wife who are being smuggled out that day by the resistance.
Vivienne and Jean-Paul learn that Julien has been taken to a camp in the mountains with other handicapped people, though there is a chance he could be rescued for a steep price. The neighbors pool their money, and Sara agrees to remain behind, hiding in the neighbors’ attic. As Vivienne rushes to try and rescue him, Julien and the other prisoners are marched deep into the forest and executed. Devastated, Vivienne and Jean-Paul return home and share the news with Sara.
Despite their grief, the Beaumie’s take care of Sara until the end of the war that August. Sara returns to school and continues to live with Vivienne and Jean-Paul. Two months later, Sara is reunited with her father, who survived by hiding in a morgue, though her mother had been arrested on the day of the roundup and eventually died at Auschwitz. Sara continues to feel her mother’s presence whenever she sees a white bird. Sara and Max stay with the Beamie’s for a while longer and then eventually move to Paris following a tearful farewell with Vivienne at the train station.
Grandmère says she continued to visit the Beaumie’s and Vivienne and Jean Paul help Max walk her down the aisle at her wedding many years later. In New York in the present, Julian is upset by the story but now understands the importance of empathy. Grandmère is celebrated at her retrospective at The Met, where she continues to carry the wooden bird she received from Julien. At school, Julian helps another student who is bullied and reaches out to a fellow student he has previously ignored, agreeing to join her activism club. Grandmère gives a speech explaining that she often has avoided telling her story but no longer can remain quiet about the importance of speaking up against evil. In the crowd, she sees Julien smiling at her. Outside the museum, she sees a white bird fly off into the sky.