Julia Jarmond (Kristin Scott Thomas) is an American journalist with a new newsmagazine that finds herself involved in a story that connects to her present day life and husband's family. The story moves comfortably back and forth between the past and present as it unfolds telling a dramatic and tragic story.
Sarah Starzynski was a young French Jew during WWII. As the Jews in Paris are being rounded up, she tells her brother to hide in the secret closet and not to let anyone know he is there, locking the door behind her. What she doesn't realize is that this is not a few hours away trip but a transport of Jews to the camps. Unable to leave to release her brother, she searches for a way out.
Relocated to a velodrome with no bathrooms and horror inducing conditions, the family is finally taken to trains and unable to rescue their son. But Sarah never gives up hope, holding tightly to the key in her possession.
Each step of her trip is followed by Julia in the present as she searches for answers of what happened to the young girl. It becomes even more personal when she finds that the new building she and her husband are renovating is one that's been owned by the family since as far back as the war. Could they have known what became of the boy? Or of Sarah? Julia continues to search for answers, feeling a connection by being in the same apartment.
The story follows Sarah as she and her family are separated in the camps. Few people realize that the Germans were not the only ones to have taken unkindly to the Jews during the war. In an attempt to placate the Germans, many French involved themselves in these roundups as well. It is only in recent years their involvement has been made more public.
In the camp Sarah continues to hold on to hope (and her key) that her brother is still out there and safe. If only she could reach him. With nothing to lose, she plans an escape and a way back to Paris. This would be an incredible task for anyone but even more so for Sarah who is only around 10 years old.
Julia continues to learn more about the apartment and about Sarah. And the more she learns the more she yearns to know what happened. Things between her and her husband become strained. She questions his family about what they knew. And by the end of the film we too will learn what became of Sarah and her brother.
While the movie is about a horrifying experience and piece of history, it never plays it for the cheap thrill. The suicide of one woman in the velodrome is the worst it gets, but you know what's going to happen to these people. The interweaving of the two stories is well handled and the acting makes you feel that these people are truly going through the ordeals they find themselves in past and present.
SARAH'S KEY is a timely story, especially when one witnesses the anti-Semitic remarks hurled during the latest Occupy Wall Street protests. It is a lesson we should have learned by now but apparently haven't. And perhaps that makes this movie one that should be seen today. A touching drama, a superb story and well made film that is worth the rental price.
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