Barry Levinson’s retelling of the story of Harry Haft (Ben Foster), a Polish Jew who survived Auschwitz by allowing himself to be used for entertainment purposes as a boxer, is a fairly conventional movie in that it plays on the viewer’s feelings about the idea of surviving. When Haft’s story was told in the media after the war, he was branded a traitor by fellow Jews for having beaten other Jews to death so that Nazi officers could bet on the outcome. Levinson goes deep into this story, both during Haft’s time in the camp (presented in black-and-white) and during his post-war career (in color) as a real competitive boxer, albeit one whose appeal was rather morbid due to the route he took to become a fighter. Though Haft, a brooding, thoughtful man, has plenty to feel guilty about, he keeps his eye on the prize, which isn’t money or fame, but the fiancee he lost when they were separated during the war. His search for her is the film’s through-line, and Levinson holds back on its melodramatic potential, keeping it at a safe distance so as to give the viewer something to look forward to in a life that seems pretty intolerable.

In Auschwitz, Haft’s “savior” is the opportunist Schneider (Billy Magnussen), a cynical officer who “doesn’t hate Jews” and gives Haft an offer he can’t refuse after Haft beats up a German guard. Rather than be killed right away, which is what happens to inmates who beat up guards, Dietrich represents him in boxing matches with other inmates—as long as he keeps winning, he’ll keep living. In New York after the war, Haft ekes out an existence as the “Pride of Poland,” and is being trained to fight heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano (Anthony Molinari), one of the most imposing fighters in the history of the sport. Feeling sorry for a fellow Jew, and a camp survivor to boot, Marciano’s trainer, Charlie Goldman (Danny DeVito), offers to coach Haft so he won’t be completely destroyed in the ring. The sequence where Haft, Goldman, and Haft’s own trainers (John Leguizamo, Paul Bates) go upstate for this secretive training session becomes more or less a treatise on how to survive in the white man’s USA, since non of the men there are WASPs. It also provides contrast to Haft’s troubled persona, since he can actually relax with these men—one Jew, one Puerto Rican, one Black man—and not feel that he’s a freak for what he went through in Auschwitz. In that regard, the New York cognate of Schneider is journalist Emory Anderson (Peter Sarsgaard), who pesters Haft to write his story for his own benefit and thus exposes him to the enmity of other Jews. Anderson is not a Nazi, but his opportunism isn’t that different from Schneider’s. 

As already mentioned, the film’s plot hook is Haft’s years-long search for his fiancee, which he carries out with the help of Miriam Wofsoniker (Vicky Krieps), an employee of the Jewish Center in Brooklyn whom he eventually marries. Though this line plays out as one would logically expect it to, it still leads to some surprising revelations, not only about the woman Haft left behind, but about what kind of man Haft really was. Levinson can only keep the melodrama at bay for so long, and once he lets it in, the film is very moving. Someone once said surviving is an art. In Haft’s case it is a constantly shifting process of self-renewal. 

Opens Aug. 11 in Tokyo at Shinjuku Musashinokan (03-3354-5670).

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