‘The Survivor’ Film Review: A Haunted Ben Foster Dominates Real-Life Drama
does for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye.” But Ben Foster’s transformation in Barry Levinson’s “The Survivor,” which had its world premiere at TIFF on Monday, is something different — because he morphs into Holocaust survivor Harry Haft from two different directions in the same film.In scenes set in the latter stages of Haft’s life, Foster is doughy and sluggish, only slightly recognizable as the actor we know from films like “The Messenger” and “Leave No Trace.” In scenes set during World War II, when Haft was an inmate at the Auschwitz concentration camp, he’s skeletal and sinewy, with the real Foster just as hard to see.