(2010) This BBC production - directed by Jon Jones from Deborah Moggach's screenplay, richly borrowing directly from the diary itself with Anne (Ellie Kendrick) narrating - is the third filmed adaptation I've watched of the iconic autobiographical account of eight Jews hidden away in a secret annex in Amsterdam.

Only a few weeks after Anne receives a diary on her thirteenth birthday in June 1942, she, her parents, Otto (Iain Glen) and Edith Frank (Tamsin Grieg), and older sister Margot (Felicity Jones) abandon their home and disappear behind a bookcase in the offices of her father's business. Risking their own lives, Miep Gies (Kate Ashfield), her husband, and a few others sworn to secrecy provide the Franks with food and other necessities.

Initially, though anxious ("I don't know how I'm going to bear it"), Anne records positively that it's "like being on holiday in some boarding house." Soon after another family, the bickering Mr and Mrs Van Daan (Ron Cook and Lesley Sharp) and their teenage son Peter (Geoff Breton) - about whom Anne confides in her pages, "I suppose I'll have to put up with him" - join them, as well as a dentist, Albert Dussel (Nicholar Farrell), who will share a bedroom with Anne ("You have to make sacrifices for a good cause").

For two years, for hours each weekday having to remain silent until the workers depart beneath them, they live together ("… and yet life is carrying on"), largely held together by Mr Frank's motto: "Work and hope." In addition to privations of food shortages and cold, tensions develop ("everyone's getting on everyone's nerves") - the Van Daans engage in peevish tantrums, Mr Dussel unfairly treats Anne as a child, Peter calls her "Miss Quack Quack" ("holding my tongue when I want to scream and shout") - as the cooped-up individuals begin "driving each other crazy."

Following her 14th birthday, Anne comments on her awareness of the changes taking place in her body, complaining that Margot won't tell her about sex. Lonely, Anne gradually realizes how nice Peter is; the young couple begins spending hours together up in the attic, "falling in love." When he loses his cat, Anne tries consoling him with "You've got me."

But she worries (as do her parents about the evolving relationship - her father cautioning, "Things can get out of hand" - to whom she writes a letter: "Forbid it or trust me"): "Is he the right one?"

In May 1944 burglars break into the lower rooms; further hardships and hunger tighten all around them. Their hopes for salvation rise while listening to BBC radio reports of D-Day.

Anne, aspiring to become a serious writer for whom life will not have been lived in vain, expresses her optimism by describing the dangerous ordeal as an adventure and romance. Noticing that Anne's feelings toward him have changed, Peter demands: "Don't you think of anybody but yourself?"

Instead of rescue and liberation by the Allies, the Nazis finally uncover their whereabouts ("doubt truth, justice, and God"), sending all to the death camps from which only Otto will survive.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2010 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

Patrick Ivers can be reached via e-mail at .