The Optimist begins as a tale of an elderly man having a routine doctor’s visit where he receives some unfortunate news from his physician. His doctor advises him that he should “get your affairs in order.” While leaving the hospital someone unphased by the unpleasant news, he sees a young woman also enduring her own medical crisis and the two share a brief glare. Little do they know that their lives will be forever entwined and changed for the better as they both encounter each other again and through their friendships learn to heal together.
Herbert Heller (Stephen Lang) is the owner of a children’s toy store in San Rafael, California and although he received the poor news about his health, he’s continuing his life. He doesn’t share the bad news with his wife and family, and continues to operate as usual. One day when he’s running an event at his store, he speaks with a local police officer (who is eerily dressed like an SS officer) and is immediately triggered and has a panic attack. It turns out that Herbert has been harboring a secret of being a Holocaust survivor, even from his own family. He realizes that with the little time he has left, he needs to come to terms with the last 60 years of his life and share his story with someone.
Herbert arranges to speak with a local counselor Ruth (Robin Weigert) to share his story via a video interview. Ruth enlists her “intern” Abby (Elsie Fisher) to assist in the interview process. Ruth knows how sensitive speaking about dealing with a Holocaust survivor is and allows Abby to take the lead under the guise of a friendly conversation. Herbert seems to remember Abby from the hospital and the two begin their conversation by talking about their shared “scars,” his on his arm from where his Auschwitz-Birkenau tattoo and hers from when she had surgery on her neck for reasons that will be revealed later on in The Optimist. While Abby is interested in his story of his time at the death camp, he is also interested in her story and the two begin to share their own personal stories of trauma and plenty of unresolved issues related to it.
While Abby’s story is incredibly tragic (a child who was pushed very hard at a young age to get into Julliard and also a child o divorced parents who have failed her), a bulk of The Optimist focuses on Herbert and his experience growing up in Prague and then having to deal with the Nazis during World War II. The Optimist doesn’t sugar coat the experience of dealing with The Holocaust through the eyes of a child who at first didn’t understand why such hatred was being directed at his and his family due to their faith, to then dealing with the traumatic experience of being stationed at the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp and all the horrors that many Jewish people had to endure there. A bulk of the film puts the audience right with young Herbert (Luke David Blumm in flashbacks) as he is ripped apart from his family with the last one he sees is his ever optimistic father (Slavko Sobin) who often would tell him the soft lie that “everything will be all right” even though he knew in his heart that it would not be (hence the title of the film). It’s quite surprising that The Optimist has a PG-13 rating as many of the scenes showing what happens at the death camp are brutal. While Herbert shares his story with Abby, Abby also starts to let her guard down with Herbert as we get to see how her life has taken a downturn. While she did not have the secret of being a Holocaust survivor for more than 60 years, The Optimist also gives her pain and tragedy ample time for you to understand her pain as well.
While everyone remembers Stephen Lang from being a stoic muscular man who is way to jacked for his age from the Avatar and Don’t Breathe movies, The Optimist somehow transforms his muscular man into a meek soft elderly man, and that’s largely in part due to Lang’s performance as the real life Herbert who up until his death in 2021 at 92 years old continued to share his story to help inspire everyone. Prior to appearing in big CGI-filled blockbusters, Lang was a huge stage actor, and The Optimist allows him to flex his dramatic muscles. He’s meek, he’s reserved and thoughtful and is dealing with extreme PTSD. In addition to Lang, Elsie Kate Fisher also delivers a stellar performance as a chronically troubled teen who is also been through the ringer with her life changes and the trauma she endures. The two have incredible chemistry together in all of their scenes in the film, towards the end while their relationship seems like he can be a surrogate father, it truly is a friendship of two people who finally let their guards down and dealt with isolationism, trauma, and survivor’s guilt.
One of the biggest themes from the film is that no matter what you are going through, the best way to confront your pain is to tackle it head on. And maybe you cannot share It with those closest to you, sometimes sharing your worst moments in life with a complete stranger who also has had a rough time can be a way to finally work through your trauma a grief and be able to finally heal.
The Optimist is now playing theaters.
