This sweet if somewhat sentiment-and-string-section-forward Canadian film tells the true story of Max (Jett Klyne, impressive), a Jewish boy aged 12 from Warsaw, trying to evade capture during the second world war. Max’s mother (Berkley Silverman), aware that there’s only a little time left and she and her baby daughter won’t make it, manages to bundle Max off to go stay with a Polish family deep in the forest who will be paid for their troubles. Jasko (Richard Armitage) and Kasia (Masa Lizdek) are basically good souls, but when the authorities start coming round looking for hiding Jews and Max only just manages to convince them he’s Kasia’s little brother, the Polish couple feel they can’t risk endangering their own and their child’s lives for Max. So they send him out to fend for himself in the forest. At least Jasko shows Max before he goes how to snare rabbits and gives him some top foraging advice about only eating mushrooms that grow on trees, not the ground. Also, avoid the yellow ones.

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