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Waste of time

Fantastic!

Absolutely Brilliant!

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

A very well written and acted movie telling a very harrowing story about what happened to Jews during World War II and the aftermath. I am of an age now where I seek knowledge of what actually happened during recent history and this story combines the facts with personal anguish. I strongly recommend those who want to watch and learn see this movie

Julia Jarmond (Kristin Scott Thomas) is refurbishing her in-laws' Paris apartment after her mother in-law left for assisted living. The apartment comes with a history and she wants to write about it for her magazine. Her husband's grandparents took over the apartment after the Starzynskis. In 1942, the police are gathering all the Jews into the Vélodrome d'Hiver. Sarah Starzynski locks her brother Michel in the closet and promises to return later as the family is taken by the police. She is separated from her parents. She escapes, loses her friend Rachel, finds salvation with the Dufaures, and desperate to return to her brother. In the present day, Julia's uncovering of the past causes friction within the Tezac family. Her pregnancy is causing a rift with her husband. Her investigation leads to William Rainsferd.Sarah's story is horrific and heart-breaking. It is intense. The present day story is less compelling even with the pregnancy. It should connect to the past much more directly. Julia should be searching for the transit camp that leads directly to Sarah in the camp. Julia should find the Dufaures which leads directly to Sarah being saved by them. In short, the two timelines should be connected directly. Honestly, the present day is only interesting for what Julia finds about Sarah and its own melodrama sorta drags. This is all about Sarah for me and it would be great to have more of her story.

In July, 1942, the French Police breaks in the apartment of the Jewish Starzynski family and arrest them in the Velodrome of Vel' d'Hiv and then in a local concentration camp with other Jewish families. The ten-year-old Sarah Starzynski (Mélusine Mayance) hides her little brother Michel in a closet in her bedroom to escape from the police officers but she does not succeed on giving the closet key to a neighbor to rescue her brother. When her parents are transferred to a German concentration camp, Sarah flees from the French guards with another girl and they meet the family of Jules Dufaure (Niels Arestrup) that help her to return to Paris to rescue her younger brother.In 2009, the American journalist Julia Jarmond (Kristin Scott Thomas) and her French husband Bertrand Tezac (Frédéric Pierrot) plan to reform his apartment in Paris to live with their teenage daughter. Julia is assigned to write an article about the notorious deportation of French Jews to German concentration camps in 1942. During her investigation, she learns that the apartment of her husband's family belonged to Sarah's family. She becomes obsessed by Sarah's life and to find the fate of the little girl. I have just bought the Blu-Ray "Elle s'appelait Sarah", a.k.a. "Sarah's Key", and I found it a perfect movie about a shameful and not divulged period of France's history in World War II. The writer Tatiana De Rosnay has written a magnificent novel and Serge Joncour and Gilles Paquet- Brenner have written an engaging screenplay. The director Gilles Paquet- Brenner made a heartbreaking film that is never corny.Kristin Scott Thomas is one of the best contemporary European actresses and she has another awesome performance in the role of a flawed, stubborn and selfish character that speaks perfect English and French and becomes obsessed to discover the truth about her husband's family. Her charm and elegance is impressive for a forty-nine-year-old woman. But the girl Mélusine Mayance "steals" the movie in the role of Sarah. The cinematography and music score are beautiful and costumes cover different periods and locations. My vote is ten.Title (Brazil): "A Chave de Sarah" ("The Sarah's Key")

Sarah's key intertwines a story of indescribable hardships during the 1942 holocaust period, with one of a modern day journalist engrossed in writing an article about the Vel' d'Hiv. In 1942 the French government supported a Nazi-decreed raid on the Jewish population living in Paris. Many Jewish residents were rounded up and taken to Vel' d'Hiv (a disused velodrome) where they were deprived of food and drink for days and finally taken to the concentration camps. Among those held captive was a young Jewish girl called Sarah Starzynski. Before being taken along with her mother and father to the velodrome she locked her little brother Michel in a closet in hope of keeping him safe. She promises to return and let him out and that promise is a driving factor behind her story. Closely weaved with the powerful scenes of Sarah's deportation and strive to escape is the story of 50 year old Julia Jarmond. A French journalist who's task of writing an article about the velodrome leads her to shocking discoveries about her own connection to this history. Her research unveils the story of Sarah and her escape from the concentration camps. However, she later learns that the house she is to inherit is in fact the house that Sarah and her family were taken away from. This collision between the past and her own future forces Julia to ask herself some questions about her own life, her work, her difficult relationship with her family and her relationship with her unborn child. Their stories become very closely connected to the point where they are almost inseparable. Julia's heartfelt mission takes her to meet those closely connected with Sarah as a child and has a tremendous impact on those who knew her. Apart from conveying the main moral of the importance of understanding the past and how it can affect our present the movie ties in strong concepts of brutality, indifference, and responsibility. It has grim examples of the cruelty of some of the French and German officers as well as the idea that they weren't all bad with one guard actually helping Sarah and her friend escape. The movie puts much blame on the French government and the indifference of its citizens and shows shocking instances of both indifference and compassion of the French people. Although Julia's story contains some powerful moments of past and present interlocking, her family issues and her unborn child are weak plot lines comparing to that of Sarah's. Her everyday modern issues take away from the gravity of Sarah's tragic story and give the film a bit of a modern cinema cliché. Despite this the film is still very gripping with Kristin Scott Thomas putting on an astounding performance. Being 2/3rd in French it is a film you must pay attention to in fear of getting lost but it is a movie I recommend to all those interested in the holocaust and its connections to our modern world.