Sarah's Key Released 5 August 2011 Director Giles Paquet-Brenner Starring Kristen Scott Thomas, Melusine Mayance, Niels Arestrup, Frederic Pierrot, Michel Duchaussoy, Dominique Frot, Natasha Mashkevich, Gisele Casadesus, Aidan Quinn Writer(s) Serge Joncour, Giles Paquet-Brenner Producer(s) Stéphane Marsil Origin France Running Time 111 minutes Genre Drama Rating

90

Superb.

Sarah’s Key is one of those films that stay with you ages after you watch it. It has superb performances and is deeply moving, engaging and well-paced. Throw a bit of mystery and suspense into the mix and you have a near-perfect movie.

Sarah’s Key is based on the book Elle s'appelait Sarah by Tatiana de Rosnay and although it’s a brilliant story, as it’s a Holocaust film parts can be difficult to watch and upsetting. However, films like these are important in keeping the horrors of that time in people’s minds as a reminder of what humans are capable of and even to put in perspective the human rights abuses that still exist today.

The film is told in a series of flashbacks from the present day to 1942 in Paris and New York. It’s primarily French with English subtitles but there are some scenes in English. The story begins in 1942 when the French police arrested Jews in a Nazi-decreed round-up and put thousands of them in the Velodrome d’Hiver, a Parisian stadium in the infamous ‘Vel' d'Hiv Roundup’. The Starzynski family are among those arrested and when the police come knocking Sarah (Mélusine Mayance) locks her little brother Michel in the wardrobe promising to return. In the present day American ex-pat journalist Julia Jarmond (Kristin Scott Thomas) is renovating her father-in-law’s house while researching the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup and discovers the two are inextricably linked. Cue a fast-paced engrossing puzzle which has repercussions left, right and centre as Julia tenaciously investigates what happened to Sarah Starzynski.

The film is impressively made with all sets and costumes faultless and the atmosphere intelligently tempered. The score works wonderfully and the central performances are near flawless. Mélusine Mayance is ridiculously good. She’s about ten and you wouldn’t believe the sensitivity and intelligence she brings to this role. Her knowing eyes are wide as pools and without speaking she conveys a myriad of emotions. Really incredible. Kristin Scott Thomas is her usual luminous self as the feisty and strong Julia. I just adore her in French roles; she speaks as well as any native and that Gallic flair comes naturally to her. She brings so much believable emotion to this role proving again just how clever and compassionate an actor she is.

I couldn’t recommend this film any more. I don’t care if I’m gushing, it really is that good. Go and see it. Bring a few industrial sized boxes of tissues though; you’ll need ‘em!

- Cynthia Bifolchi