SARAH'S KEY

Ma's View: 

This movie brings into the light the sad and shameful history of the deportation of Jewish families from France to the death camps in 1942 during the German occupation - with the full collaboration of French authorities and the approval of at least some of its citizens.  Julia, played by Kristen Scott-Thomas, in her usual powerful, understated style, is an American journalist based in Paris and married to a Frenchman, who researches the events of this period for a feature article.  Piece by piece, she discovers the story of 10 year old Sarah who locked her little brother in a cupboard to prevent him being taken, promising to return and release him.  Melusine Mayance captures the desperate determination yet vulnerability of this little girl as she is caught up in circumstances beyond her understanding or control.

Up to this point, the movie apparently follows closely the plot of the novel, "Elle s'appelait Sarah", upon which the movie is based, presenting an absorbing narrative of these terrible events interspersed with scenes from the present where we learn of the effects of her discoveries upon Julia.  Sadly, somewhere at this point, the story stops being Sarah's story and becomes Julia's.  Her discovery that the family's apartment that she and her partner are about to renovate is the very apartment where the little boy was entombed causes relationship problems.  These are exacerbated by her obsession for finding out what became of Julia in later life.  This part of the story leads us to America, a son, a terminally ill ex-husband and we learn about Sarah's inability to attain happiness leading to her eventual suicide.  In all this, far too much celluloid is devoted to the son and father and Julia and we see only snippets of Sarah - and a not very convincing performance from the adult actress playing Sarah does not help this part of the story.

All in all a little disappointing!  A superb performance as usual from Scott-Thomas (blast her for looking so much younger than me when she is actually older!) and an interesting  historical story marred by too much imagination on the part of director/co-writer Gilles Paquet-Brenner who I'm assuming thought the story needed to be padded out with the unconvincing and unsatisfying ending.

My Score:  7/10

Pepe's View:

I agree Ma.  All in all a little too contrived throughout - the movie was convincing when it was about Sarah played as a girl beautifully by Melusine Mayance but the added on (padding?) section of Sarah as an adult lost me completely.  Interestingly, the original novel ended when the little girl returned to the appartment to find her brother.  This would have been the perfect place to end the movie as well.  It is fantastic that the events of the round up of the Jews in Paris by the Gendarmes in 1942 are finally finding a voice but the French film "The Round Up" is a far better investigation of this blot on France's history.
I read an interesting comment on this and other holocaust stories such as Life is Beautiful and The Boy in Striped Pyjamas.  There is a strong feeling and one which I tend to share that these fictional dramas based on real events cheapen the hundreds of thousands of "real stories" that occurred.  Some time spent on research would unearth them and make for far better and more convincing stories.  As one reviewer says - we are encouraged to grieve for the story of an imaginary Sarah while the thousands of stories of real Sarahs are forgotton.
A good movie up to a point but one that did not know when to end.

My Score:  7/10