Sarah's Key: Movie Review

Sarah's Key: Movie Review

Sarah's Key
Rating: 8/10
Cast: Kristin Scott Thomas, Melusine Mayance, Niels Arestrup, Aidan Quinn
Director: Gilles Paquet-Brenner
Based on Tatiana de Rosnay's best selling novel, Scott Thomas stars as American journalist Julia Jarmond.
She begins to look into the Vel'd'Hiv Roundup in 1942 in France as part of a magazine article but discovers that she shares a key connection to what happened in the past to a Jewish family and their little girl called Sarah.
As she digs further into the past, and vivid flashbacks bring to light what happened, Jarmond finds that the present and future can definitely be influenced by what has already happened.
Kristin Scott Thomas has done little recently cinematically to impress after Leaving and Love Crime; so it's great to report that she's back on form in this exquisitely layered and powerful drama.
The film starts with two children bouncing and giggling in a bed in 1942; but with a dreaded knock at the door, everything changes.
This film is arrestingly good and packs a mighty wallop as the pieces begin to fit together; the story from 1942 is horrifically well realised, and conjures up a time we hope never to see again.

It's a strong sense of direction that delicately weaves together these two tales, stretched 67 years apart as they are - and thanks to the sensitive acting of Scott Thomas, you'll be left an emotional heap at the end.