Sarah's Key

This is a harrowing tale of the holocaust based on a novel. The fact that it's not fact has raised some eyebrows. I feel that anything that sparks people's interest in this dark time in history is a good thing. It is sympathetically scripted and very sensitive to the subject. The film follows American in Paris Julia (consistantly beautiful and brilliant Kristin Scott Thomas), who is married to Bertrand, who's a little bit selfish in my opinion. Julia and Bertrand are about to move into architect Bertrand's parents apartment. During her research into a terrible real incident, where the French rounded up their Jews, and kept them in a cycle stadium the velodrome for 3 days before shipping them off to the death camps, Julia discovers that their new flat's previous occupiers, the Starzynskis,were a family that were taken away to this stadium. Interweaved in the modern day story, we follow the path of Sarah, the little girl from the flat as she hides her brother from the French and is taken away with her mother and father. The film slowly unravels and we learn what the terrible fate is of the Starzynski family. Julia also has her own troubles, her selfish husband for one, more like a child than a partner, her teenage daughter and the possibility, after years of trying, of becoming a mother again. After Julia finds out the terrible story, she sets about trying to track down the surviving members of this heartbreaking time, with some surprising consequences. The film is extremely well acted, especially by the dear Melusine Mayance who plays Sarah. The skipping back and forth over time is not confusing and is edited well. The subject matter is of course, chilling, and completely devastating.there are some nice touches. The younger journalists that Julia works with are initially indifferent and ignorant to the horrors of world War 2. The guilt that haunts people in the present over the past is evident. It's a many layered film, with a nice return to the screen by Aidan Quinn. Sarah's Key: Will unlock the tears. 7/10