Sarah's Key Reviews
Top CriticThomas carries the weight of the movie, and her usual sangfroid works against her; when she finally makes contact with the deported couple's grandson, the story crumples into sentimentality
Scott Thomas's portrayal of her character's emotional transition ensures Sarah's Key will keep your heart open.
French director Paquet-Brenner occasionally yields to melodrama, particularly in the final act, but he is resolute about not depicting all of his countrymen as Nazi stooges, since many weren't.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Thomas' performance is one of brilliant restraint and believable naturalism.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
It does provide audiences with the satisfaction of seeing and hearing an important truth expressed, and that's better than making you feel good. That's making you feel something.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Luckily, the movie has Scott Thomas. She knows her radiance can't be helped, so she uses it here like a searchlight.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
Scott Thomas is tremendous ... the emotional detail of her performance is never less than gripping, even as the film falters.
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| Original Score: 3/5
A compelling, handsomely produced history lesson and personal drama...
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| Original Score: 3/4
Based on a popular novel by Tatiana De Rosnay, Sarah's Key has perhaps a few too many coincidences and complications, but its impact is undeniable. The scars of war never truly heal.
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| Original Score: B
A movingly told tale of tragedy and its consequences, not just for the players in the original tragedy but also for those touched by their actions, in an ever-widening circle of aftershocks.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Fans of the book will be glad to hear that it's a faithful adaptation, if markedly less compelling than de Rosnay's prose.
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| Original Score: B-
"Sarah's Key," based on the novel by Tatiana de Rosnay, struggles with a problem it never overcomes: How do you make viewers care about everyday problems when juxtaposed with the horror of the Holocaust?
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
Excellent performances make the movie effective. Yet the flashbacks have a depth and resonance largely absent from the modern scenes.
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| Original Score: 3/4
While the flashbacks come to life through small acts of courage and kindness amid epic-scale evil, the frame story is a recurring letdown that feels trivial and contrived.
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| Original Score: 3/5
"Sarah's Key" cuts back and forth between a tragic story involving the Holocaust and an essentially trivial, feel-good story about a modern-day reporter. It's an awkward fit and diminishes the impact of the earlier story.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
In an eloquent, moving manner, Sarah's Key argues that we are all products of the past regardless of whether we are aware of it and that understanding our roots, no matter how painful the process, is preferable to remaining oblivious.
This movie of "Sarah's Key" might have been better if it had rewritten the book, and simply focused on the past.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
A dramatic tale of survival and horrific memories struggles against distracting melodrama in "Sarah's Key," and unfortunately, melodrama wins.
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| Original Score: 2/5
Clunky, improbable plot developments match equally inept dialogue.
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| Original Score: 1.5/4
Scott Thomas, arguably the best British actress who managed never to be cast in the Harry Potter series, makes for a perfect audience surrogate.
Plot contrivances that may have passed for intricacies in the book ... now ring as false as Sarah's story rings true.
The glib story and hectoring structure undermine the filmmakers' best intentions.
Unflinching yet poignant, Sarah's Key asks just how deeply you want to delve into your past.
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| Original Score: 3/4
"Sarah's Key" is more powerful than you expect, maybe even more powerful than it should be.
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| Original Score: 4/5
[It] is undone by its very premise: that the two stories it tells can coexist in the same film.
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| Original Score: 2/5
The Holocaust scenes are wrenching, the past-meets-present dialectics less so.
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| Original Score: B
Painful, blood-curdling and ultimately heartbreaking, Sarah's Key occasionally moves too ponderously for its own good, but its myriad elements are coherent and easy to follow.
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| Original Score: 3/4
When Sarah's Key leans into the horror (as it should), it's harrowing. Alas, that's only half the time.
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| Original Score: 3/5
Sarah's Key dutifully follows the template of scores of movies about the Shoah: wringing from atrocity the most unseemly sentimentality.
...it doesn't shilly-shally about issues pertaining to guilt and culpability. It's also pretty engrossing...
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| Original Score: 3.5/5
A heartbreaking, wonderfully acted and superbly dramatized drama.
Comprising prestige names and unknowns, the ensemble cast acquits itself well.
