This adaptation is first and foremost a remembrance of that Anne who, despite living a life marred by tragedy, tried by indignities, always held true to herself. Light touches of historical context, woven in through diary entries, provide necessary background without coming across as overly didactic. The whimsical nature of Polonsky’s illustrations, which play upon Anne’s active imagination during her time in hiding, are unexpectedly moving; though we never lose sight of the gravitas of Anne’s story, these forays into fantasy, which show Anne escaping from the harsh present into a future that will never come, serve to remind us of the truly human face of genocide. This is an exceptionally graceful homage to a story that deserves to be told for years to come.
... a stunning, haunting work of art that is unfortunately marred by some questionable interpretive choices ... Polonsky’s illustrations, richly detailed and sensitively rendered, work marvelously to fill in the gaps, allowing an image or a facial expression to stand in for the missing text and also providing context about Anne’s historical circumstances that is, for obvious reasons, absent from the original ... The comedy of the Diary — one of the book’s most charming and often overlooked aspects — shines in this form ... it seems a mistake not to have included more in the way of critical apparatus to explain the ways the creators diverged from the historical record, especially when they touch most directly on the Holocaust ... Folman and Polonsky’s greatest missed opportunity, however, is their representation of Anne... Folman and Polonsky depict Anne as a schoolgirl, a friend, a sister, a girlfriend and a reluctantly obedient daughter. But only once, at the close of the book, do they show her in the act of writing. In so doing, they perpetuate the misconception about the book that so many have come to know, love and admire — it was, in truth, not a hastily scribbled private diary, but a carefully composed and considered text. As artists, they ought to understand how important it is to recognize Anne’s achievement on her own terms, as she intended it. Their book is brilliantly conceived and gorgeously realized; sadly, it does a disservice to the remarkable writer at its center.
Both a challenge and a wonderment ... serves as a companion volume to — and, really, a midrash on — Anne Frank’s immortal memoir, and the book stands on its own as a work of art, sometimes disturbing but always illuminating ... Folman and Polonsky have reclaimed Anne Frank in all of her humanity, and they allow us to witness for ourselves her beauty, courage, vision and imagination, all of the qualities that make her life and early death so heartbreaking. And, in doing so, they have elevated the tools of the comic book to create an astonishing work of art.
... it was both thrilling and disappointing to read Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation, illustrated by David Polonsky and adapted by Ari Folman. The book’s carefully crafted images interpret elements of Frank’s story with beauty and humor. But passages like the one that reads, 'We still love life, we haven't yet forgotten the voice of nature, and we keep hoping,' are missing, and the girl who breathed dimension into an unfathomable history is flattened, her power diluted ... the adaptation’s selective, late shift to the text obscures the very development [of Frank's writing] and gives readers a limited view of Frank’s skills ... While the graphic adaptation captures some of Frank’s personality, energy, pain, and creative ability, it’s so abridged that readers are shortchanged on her inner monologue, on the beautifully articulated and nuanced view of the world, and on the three-dimensional narration that brings you with Frank into the annex ... More than any particular fact or event, the graphic version is missing the sense of familiarity that slowly builds, more strongly and deeply than you realize, until the moment that this friend, this stand-in for you, confronts the thing she’d feared for so long: the moment that stole her fantasies of her life 'after the war' out from under her. The last pages of the adaptation feel like the end of a story, not the end of a life.
... Mr. Folman’s has succeeded in capturing the humor and vitality of the diaries—the hilarious sarcasm, the passionate declarations, the contemplative self-reproach—without a trace of retrofitted sentimentality. He owes much to David Polonsky’s sublime illustrations. Every one of Anne’s flights of fancy finds a thrilling and ingenious visual representation ... A wonderful, full-page composite image of Anne in her many moods—dreamy, snarky, silly, pensive, outraged or lovesick—is a reminder that the diaries are less about a life’s senseless destruction than about a brilliant young woman eternally coming into being.
Stays true to the indomitable spirit of Frank's words while bringing fresh eyes to her circumscribed existence ... Evocatively crafted, this comic brings Frank's world to life for all ages but takes care to respect and prioritize the primacy of her story in her own words.
The narrative devotes ample time to Anne’s romantic feelings and sexual questions. The adaptors of her story take her seriously, but not more seriously than she took herself. The beauty of Anne’s life and the untarnished power of her legacy—here further elevated by Folman and Polonsky—are heartening reminders of the horror of her fate.
