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

