Sarah's Key (2010)

In modern-day Paris, a journalist finds her life becoming entwined with a young girl whose family was torn apart during the notorious Vel' d'Hiv Roundup in 1942.

Director:

Gilles Paquet-Brenner

Writers:

Tatiana De Rosnay (novel), Serge Joncour (screenplay)

Stars:

Kristin Scott Thomas, Mélusine Mayance, Niels Arestrup

5 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Kristin Scott Thomas	...	Julia Jarmond
Mélusine Mayance	...	Sarah
Niels Arestrup	...	Jules Dufaure
Frédéric Pierrot	...	Bertrand Tezac
Michel Duchaussoy	...	Édouard Tezac
Dominique Frot	...	Geneviève Dufaure
Natasha Mashkevich	...	Mme Starzynski
Gisèle Casadesus	...	Mamé
Aidan Quinn	...	William Rainsferd
Sarah Ber	...	Rachel
Arben Bajraktaraj	...	M. Starzynski
Karina Hin	...	Zoé
James Gerard	...	Mike Bambers
Joseph Rezwin	...	Joshua (as Joe Rezwin)
Kate Moran	...	Alexandra

Storyline

One of the darkest moments in French history occurred in 1942 Paris when French officials rounded up over ten thousand Jews and placed them in local camps. Eventually, over eight thousand were sent off to German concentration camps. As ten-year old Sarah (Mélusine Mayance) and her family are being arrested, she hides her younger brother in a closet. After realizing she will not be allowed to go home, Sarah does whatever she can to get back to her brother. In 2009, a journalist named Julia Jarmond (Dame Kristin Scott Thomas) is on assignment to write a story on the deported Jews in 1942. When she moves into her father-in-law's childhood apartment, she realizes it once belonged to the Strazynski family, and their daughter Sarah.

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Plot Keywords:

apartment | journalist | escape | key | jewish family | 

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Taglines:

Sometimes the past can unlock the future

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Genres:

Drama | War

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for thematic material including disturbing situations involving the Holocaust

Did You Know?

Trivia

This was the most successful French movie in the Netherlands, due to the popularity of the book on which this movie was based, until The Intouchables (2011) took the record.

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Goofs

In the first scene, Sarah lies on her left side and faces Michel who is lying on his right side, facing each other. This means Sarah is on the left side of the bed. When they throw the blankets of, Sarah suddenly lies at the right side of the bed.

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Quotes

Julia Jarmond: And so I write this for you, My Sarah. With the hope that one day, when you're old enough, this story that lives with me, will live with you as well. When a story is told, it is not forgotten. It becomes something else, a memory of who we were; the hope of what we can become.

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Alternate Versions

The UK Blu-ray release has approx 9 minutes cut from the film compared to the French version.

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Connections

Featured in Maltin on Movies: Favorite Films Based on Books (2013)

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Soundtracks

Moonlight Magic
Written by Alan Moorhouse
Performed by Alan Moorhouse

User Reviews

atrocities require complicity

Gilles Paquet-Brenner's "Elle s'appelait Sarah" ("Sarah's Key" in English) focuses on an American journalist (Kristin Scott Thomas) trying to find a French-Jewish girl who got rounded up by the Vichy government but escaped the camps. So, the journalist travels from place to place to try and learn what became of Sarah, and the full story of Sarah's locking her brother in a closet so that he wouldn't get arrested. The main point that the movie makes is not only the links that we have to past incidents, like the apartment that the journalist buys, but that atrocities require complicity. In this case, France's Vichy government was perfectly happy to assist the Nazis in the genocide against anyone whom the Nazis considered inferior.

Does the movie have any downsides? Well, maybe jumping back and forth between the present and the past is a little confusing, but it doesn't really drag the movie down. To be certain, I had never heard of the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup before seeing "Sarah's Key". The main that is that this is part of history, it and needs to get told so that it never happens again. Really good movie.

Details

Official Sites:

Official site Official site [Spain]

Country:

France

Language:

French English Italian German Yiddish

Release Date:

22 July 2011 (USA)

Also Known As:

Sarah's Key

Filming Locations:

Central Park, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

EUR10,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$115,708, 24 July 2011

Gross USA:

$7,693,187

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$24,792,815

Company Credits

Production Co:

Hugo Productions, Studio 37, TF1 Droits Audiovisuels

Technical Specs

Runtime:

111 min 102 min (cut)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1