Sarah’s Key presents Kristin Scott-Thomas as an American journalist whose research on a story about a mass arrest of Jews in Nazi-occupied Paris leads takes an unexpected detour into her husband’s family history. Director Gilles Paquet-Brenner toggles between her story and flashbacks depicting a young girl taken in the Vel d’Hiv Roundup who manages to escape from a French-run deportation camp. The scenes of the past work better than those set in the present—the girl’s survival story crackles with urgency and energy that the rest of the film can’t match. Still, Scott-Thomas is intelligent and sensitive as a woman who pays an emotional toll for unearthing buried secrets, helping Paquet-Brenner craft a cinematic reminder of why tough stories need to be told.
This article appears in Sep 15-21, 2011.