The Devil's Arithmetic

The Devil's Arithmetic (1999) is a drama laced with fantasy that you can watch online on iFILM. Sixteen-year-old American Hannah (Kirsten Dunst) is bored by her family's talk of the Jewish past — until she opens the door during a Passover seder and finds herself in a Polish village in the early 1940s, days before its people are loaded onto the trains.

Living under a borrowed name among girls who don't yet know what waits for them, Hannah experiences what she once half-listened to at home. Her anchor is Rivka (Brittany Murphy), a girl her own age who teaches her how to last where survival is measured in days. Director Donna Deitch never reaches for shock; what unsettles most is how ordinary cruelty becomes, and how quietly a normal life is erased.

Adapted from Jane Yolen's novel, the television film went on to win an Emmy, with Louise Fletcher and Mimi Rogers in support. A measured, powerful piece about memory — and about why someone else's history is worth taking in while there are still people left to tell it. Stream The Devil's Arithmetic (1999) online on iFILM.