“Sarah’s Key” is yet another movie dealing with the Holocaust and its impact on us all, but don’t be fooled into thinking its going to be the same old thing. Based on the novel “Her Name Was Sarah” by Tatiana de Rosnay, it ventures into this dark part of history from a different perspective as we watch the French army and bureaucracy aiding the Nazi party as they rounded up Jews and shipped them to Auschwitz (the event was called the Vel’ d’Hiv’ Roundup). As the story moves back and forth in time from 1942 to 2009, American journalist Julia Jarmond (Kristin Scott Thomas) works to solve a decades-old mystery that can no longer remain hidden.
In 2009, Julia has moved into an apartment with her French husband and teenage daughter. She had previously written a celebrated article about the Vel’ d’Hiv’ Roundup and soon learns that her husband inherited the apartment from his grandparents who came into possession of it during that time. From there she becomes obsessed in learning about the apartment’s history and learns it was the scene of an unspeakable incident. Finding out the truth about this incident however proves difficult as her family sees it as too damaging to reveal…
Julia’s main focus centers on a young girl named Sarah Starzynski (Mélusine Mayance) who hid her little brother Michel in a closet to keep him from getting rounded up with everyone else. She makes him promise to stay in the closet until she returns and takes with her the only key to that can unlock it. But Sarah soon realizes no one will be going back home and escapes her captors in a desperate attempt to save Michel before it’s too late.
Like Stephen Daldry did with “The Reader,” director Gilles Paquet-Brenner makes the transitions between past and present feel seamless and never jarring. He also avoids turning “Sarah’s Key” into a schmaltz fest begging for Oscar consideration which is a relief. By getting naturalistic performances from his actors, he creates an atmosphere that feels real and not exaggerated for effect. You end up getting so caught up emotionally in the story and its characters that you don’t feel like you’re watching just any movie.
Thomas is an amazing actress who never gets the same acclaim Meryl Streep does on a regular basis. Maybe it’s because her acting is not as theatrical as Streep’s tends to be, but Thomas’ strength is in inhabiting characters to where you never catch her acting. She pulls off a flawless American accent making it look effortless, and she speaks fluent French beautifully.
Attention must also be paid to Mélusine Mayance who gives a very believable performance as the young Sarah. Called upon to portray a child going through horribly nightmarish circumstances, Mayance holds her own among the adults and breaks your heart through her utter commitment to the character. She makes you share Sarah’s desperation in getting to her little brother before someone else does.
“Sarah’s Key” is one of those movies where it is hard to find any fault with it. Everything seems to fit together perfectly and nothing ever seems superfluous to the story. While it treads the well worn ground of Holocaust movies, it finds an interesting angle by looking at the complicity of the French in this atrocity. It never did get much of a release and you will probably be hearing about it soon on DVD and Blu-ray, or you can catch streaming on Netflix. Here’s hoping that it finds the audience it deserves soon.
* * * * out of * * * *
See also:
“I’ve Loved You so Long” – Kristin Scott Thomas in a Tour De Force Performance
“The Reader”