“The Zone of Interest” is very much a style over substance film, as are all of Jonathan Glazer’s works that I’ve seen. There is nothing that is compelling here from a narrative or character standpoint. The metaphors that are represented by the juxtapositions in settings are banal. Glazer’s direction comes off as so self-important and pretentious that it diminishes the feeling of disgust that he wants his audience to feel from the events onscreen. This is not one of the great Holocaust movies, nor will it ever be. I was so unimpressed that after the final scene, I rolled my eyes, leapt out of my chair, and got out of the theatre before anyone else.

The first word that comes to mind to describe the direction is “gimmicky.” The film is bookended by extended “scenes” of nothing but music. The screen is black and the music plays to build up the atmosphere. The first attempt at this lasts for far too long, and the second attempt comes off as desperate and silly. It’s so obvious what Glazer is doing, and he thinks he’s just the best at it. He’s like a magician that tells you the trick up front and then still expects you to be impressed by it during his performance. The music is very electronic and sounds like something from “A Clockwork Orange.”

What happens in the plot, you might ask? There’s a family living in a tidy, sterile house next to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Yes, the juxtaposition is that basic. The house that the family lives in is idyllic with a beautiful garden that is fertilized by human ashes. The husband is a Nazi officer who shows no conflict or any interesting traits until the final scene, and the wife just comes off as bitter and selfish. The actors do the absolute best they can with what they’re given, which is practically nothing script-wise. The children are obviously going to be scarred by this experience – one of the girls ventures into the camp at night and drops off fruit for the human remains. Other than that, the children are nothing more than pointless background characters.

The film is entirely focused on atmosphere rather than plot and character, so there is no psychological depth to either spur our intelligence or empathy for these characters. Really, when a director takes on a Holocaust project, they have to do something that hasn’t already been done, and Glazer thinks that just by focusing on aesthetics and cheap filmmaking tricks, that will make his project stand out. I’m already familiar with the horrors of the Holocaust, I’ve visited some of the concentration camps before, and I’ve seen my fair share of Holocaust movies. When I go to a film (or read a story), I want to be invested in the story and the characters, not just point out cool aspects of the production design, or only be impressed with the world-building. The history of these events is well known – visiting the actual sights is a more harrowing experience than sitting through a Hollywood film. Modern day Auschwitz is shown in a very on-the-nose scene that nearly had me facepalming. The breadth and poignancy of that location hardly registers in the film.

“The Zone of Interest” is a failure in my book. Glazer is a director that I’ve desperately tried to appreciate, but his works are so intellectually uninteresting. There’s a compelling concept that needed to be far more bold aesthetically and more character-driven where the psychology of Nazi Germany and ordinary citizens was explored. The story is told from a German perspective, but the primary character is the most basic archetype of an evil Nazi commander. He revels in the sick satisfaction of gassing a full room of unsuspecting people. He is physically repulsed in the final scene, but that has little dramatic weight. It’s obvious he has no real psychological conflict. His attitude is a boring formality, as is the exercise of this film.