ARTS&LIFE
FILM REVIEW
A
Holocaust survivor and a home-
less teenager develop an unlikely
friendship in Tiger Within.
One walks with a cane, limping from his
Los Angeles apartment to the synagogue
and to the cemetery, where he cares for his
deceased wife’s grave. The other is a swasti-
ka-wearing runaway from a troubled home
in Cleveland, where her mother is in an
abusive relationship.
The 99-minute film from director Rafal
Zielinski, which will open on July 7 in select
theaters and on digital platforms, follows
the stories of two opposite lives that collide
and become one.
Teenage Casey (Margot Josefsohn in
her theatrical film debut) is a tattooed
and pierced punk rocker with a partially
shaved head and combat boots. She strug-
gles to fit in at school and even more so in
her broken home. In the evenings, Casey
escapes her sorrows by attending punk rock
shows, where on one occasion a swastika is
spray-painted on her black leather jacket.
Finally, the day arrives when she wants
out. Casey takes a train from Cleveland
to Los Angeles to live with her estranged
father, whom she hasn’t seen in years.
While waiting for her father, Casey spots
him walking into the train station with his
new idyllic family — a beautiful wife and
three daughters. She hides until they leave,
assuming she never showed up, and turns
to the streets.
As Casey eats dinner at a table outside
a food vendor, her bag, which had been
sitting at her feet, is stolen. With nowhere
to go, and no money for food or shelter, she
falls asleep in the cemetery where Samuel
(Ed Asner in his final on-camera role) cares
for his wife Rhea’s grave.
She awakes to find Samuel staring at
her. Instead of judging her or asking what
she’s doing, he offers to buy her a meal.
Samuel, whose young twin daughters were
murdered in the Holocaust, presumably in
Josef Mengele’s experimentation on twins
(though the film never confirms this),
never had the family he deserved. Casey,
meanwhile, had the same troubles in differ-
ent form.
Like many teenagers her age, Casey is
unaware of the events of the Holocaust.
Walking around with a swastika on her
back, she has no knowledge of its connec-
tions to Nazis and Jewish extermination.
Samuel, meanwhile, is patient with the
girl. He teaches her important lessons about
Ed Asner’s final on-camera performance
teaches love and forgiveness.
ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER
48 | JUNE 29 • 2023
Holocaust Survivor and
Runaway Forge Friendship in
Tiger Within
Ed Asner as Samuel and
Margot Josefsohn as Casey
PHOTO COURTESY OF MENEMSHA FILMS