Max Rothman (John Cusack) is a Munich-based World War I veteran who returns home with his right arm lost in the Third Battle of Ypres, a disability that ends his career as a painter. He pivots to running a modern art gallery, trying to balance a quiet marriage to Nina with a long-standing affair with Liselore von Peltz (Leelee Sobieski). Through a chance encounter, he encounters a young Adolf Hitler (Noah Taylor), a war veteran who feels the sting of Germany’s defeat and the Versailles humiliation, and who longs to have his paintings shown.
Rothman sees potential in Hitler’s raw talent, though he recognizes the man’s unsettled anger and fragility. He sympathizes with the postwar void that has consumed Hitler and encourages him to push deeper into his art, even as he remains wary of the man’s darker impulses. Despite misgivings about Hitler’s beliefs, Rothman opts to support him by taking some of his paintings under a contractual arrangement, hoping to foster what he believes could be a remarkable artistic voice.
Meanwhile, Reichswehr officer Captain Karl Mayr observes Hitler’s increasingly ardent anti-Semitic rhetoric as he speaks to passersby and convinces him to pursue politics and propaganda as a career. Mayr offers to bankroll Hitler’s ambitions, leveraging military support to help him rise within a nascent nationalist movement. This alliance pushes Hitler toward a broader stage than Rothman’s gallery, sharpening the tensions between art’s fragile idealism and politics’ brutal pragmatism.
As their conversations unfold, Rothman begins to question Hitler’s underlying motives regarding his racial worldview. In a decisive exchange, Hitler denies being anti-Semitic and asserts a disturbing admiration for a concept he calls “blood purity.” He proclaims that Germans would be better off without mixing with other races. > "blood purity"
Seeing Hitler’s sketches, Rothman recognizes a talent with a magnetic pull toward greatness, but he also realizes that talent could be weaponized to devastating effect if turned toward propaganda and power rather than art. This realization unsettles him, even as Hitler remains thrilled by the prospect of having his work recognized, misunderstanding the underlying fear and the ethical dilemma Rothman faces.
Their uneasy bond deepens as Rothman, with a calm but growing concern, becomes the only artist who might shape Hitler’s early career—an entanglement that could either illuminate a path for genuine expression or empower a political force that will consume its creator. John Cusack embodies Rothman’s restraint and humane curiosity, while Noah Taylor renders Hitler as a volatile blend of ambition and insecurity that would eventually outpace any attempt at mentorship.
The night they plan to meet again becomes a turning point: Hitler delivers a vehement anti-Semitic rally with Mayr backing him, then moves to a café to discuss new militaristic drawings with Rothman. As Rothman approaches, a mob incited by Hitler erupts in violence, savagely beating him as he lies unresponsive. In the café, an angry Hitler exits, convinced that Rothman has stood him up, unaware of the fate that has just befallen the man who briefly believed in his talent and in the possibility of a future where art could guide rather than weaponize power.
In the end, the film threads a tense meditation on mentorship, responsibility, and the dangerous ethics of nurturing genius when the artist’s muse is a fanatic of destructive capacity. It probes how proximity to art can illuminate genius while also exposing the perilous allure of ideas that dehumanize others, leaving viewers to weigh the fragile line between support and manipulation in a world on the brink of catastrophe.
