Sarah's Key

Film Review
By Bill Charland, Daily Press Film Critic

In the dark, early morning hours of July 16, 1942, one of the blackest episodes in the history of France unfolded. The Vel' d'Hiv Roundup (named for the indoor bicycle racing arena where it took place) resulted in the arrest and detention of more than 13,000 Jews, the majority women and children. Many were Jewish foreigners living in France. The prisoners were kept for days in the arena under inhumane conditions, lacking food, water, and sanitary facilities, before they were loaded onto trains and sent to die in Auschwitz.

Following the liberation of France, the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup became a target for rage at the puppet Vichy government and its head, Pierre Laval. It was not just the crime itself that was so horrendous. But there were indications that the French Vichy had actively supported the Roundup, wanting to rid the country of foreign Jews. Laval was executed by firing squad.

“Sarah’s Key,” based on a novel by the popular French writer, Tatiana de Rosnay, explores the assault on Parisian Jews through the eyes of a small girl caught in the Roundup in an especially tragic way. Trying to save her younger brother before the soldiers arrived, Sarah locked him in a closet, planning to free him momentarily. But she was unable to return for him for several days and when she did, her brother had died. Young Mélusine Mayance gives a searing performance as Sarah, who would be haunted for life by her ordeal.

Kristin Scott Thomas plays Julia, an American journalist living in Paris who becomes intrigued with the fate of Sarah when her husband acquires the apartment where the brother had died and decides to remodel it. The tensions in Sarah’s life and in Julia’s marriage are juxtaposed in scenes from the present day with flashbacks to the horrific events of occupied France during World War II. The rhythm of the film sets up a dynamic interplay between the conflicts of the past and present, at both a societal and personal level. Along the way, we’re shown the consequences of searching for truth, the healing as well as the hazards in it.

Thomas, who is bilingual in French and English, adds a fine, flat American accent to her role in “Sarah’s Key.” She has a unique gift for the role of a foreigner living in Paris. Growing up in England, she was rejected by a London drama school and set out for Paris where she found work as an au pair. She married a French gynecologist and had three children in France. But all the while she continued to grow as an actress in two languages, starring in “Four Weddings and a Funeral” with Hugh Grant and “The Walker” with Woody Harrelson in English, along with French films such as this.

It’s said that when her 18-year marriage broke up with the French physician, it was because of an affair with a British actor during one of her stints on the London stage. That’s one way to straddle two cultures.