Sarah's Key

France 2010, 111 minutes
Dir. Gilles Paquet-Brenner
In French with English subtitles
Rating: [M]
Genres: Foreign Cinema, Drama

Topics: Period 1940s, Tearjerker.

Feat. Kristin Scott Thomas, Mélusine Mayance, Niels Arestrup, Frédéric Pierrot, Dominique Frot, Aidan Quinn, Michel Duchaussoy

“Harrowing, emotionally complex and filled with pathos.”~Toronto International Film Festival

Aroview: Kristen Scott Thomas plays an American journalist whose life and work becomes entwined with a young Jewish girl whose family was torn apart during the notorious Vel' d'Hiv Roundup of 1942.

Based on Tatiana de Rosnay's best-selling novel, this adaptation is vivid in its wartime sequences, and thoughtful in its present day, with Scott Thomas in reliable form. Grounded in the human and emotional connections to the Holocaust, this is particularly admirable as an intimate reflection on tragedy rather than one swollen in melodrama, with past and present bound in a denouement of simple yet devastating poignance.