Review: "Sarah's Key"

I never tire of films about World War II, especially when they're as good and emotionally affecting as "Sarah's Key," a French drama starring English actress Kristen Scott Thomas.

Perhaps younger generations see movies like this -- which still turn up quite often year in local cinemas, even seven decades after the war's end -- and think, "Not again." Perhaps even those old enough to have lived through those dark times grow tired of seeing them portrayed from yet another light. But I think, and hope, not.

The Second World War was the most pivotal event in the history of mankind, bar none. Conquerors like Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan rode momentary tides of power that left the landscape and people much as they had been.

World War II created and destroyed countries, shifted the balance of world power across the Atlantic Ocean, and ushered in a technological age wherein humans harnessed the power to totally and permanently annihilate each other.

And, if one man had had his way -- abetted by millions who agreed or went along out of fear -- an entire race of people would have been exterminated.

The saga of the Jewish journey gets a new twist in "Sarah's Key," which uses the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup as a prism for a historical story set in the past and present. The roundup is a stain on the proud legacy of Occupied France in which nearly 14,000 French Jews were arrested and taken to a bicycle stadium, where conditions made the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina look like a weekend resort.

The execrable event was ordered by the Nazis but carried out by French authorities. Many of those arrested were eventually sent to concentration camps for extermination.

Scott Thomas plays Julia Jarmond, an American journalist who's been living in France for a quarter-century. She's researching Vel' d'Hiv Roundup for a magazine story, and stumbles across a very personal connection to the tragedy. At first afraid to confront the truth, she soon becomes obsessed with nailing it down.

Her search becomes a quest to learn the fate of Sarah Starzynski, a young girl whose family was among those arrested. When the police came knocking Sarah, thinking she was saving her little brother's life, tucked him inside a hidden closet in their apartment, locking him in with her key and promising to return.

Of course, they were not allowed to return for days, which soon turned into weeks, leaving little doubt about the young Starzynski lad's fate. But this becomes Sarah's own quest, guarding the ornamental key through many adversities, to learn the truth for herself.

This mirrors Julia's own journey of discovery, which she senses must end in disappointment -- both personally and professionally -- and yet she cannot let go of the chimera's tail she has grasped.

Scott Thomas is her usual solid self, with her beautiful, wan face a canvas of colliding emotions and thoughts. Her French is -- to my untrained ear -- superlative, though her (supposedly) Brooklyn accent is, shall we say, more aspirational than operational.

Mélusine Mayance is a revelation as young Sarah, who finds the resolve to carry on even when separated from her parents, or even any real hope for her family's survival. I also very much enjoyed the performance by Niels Arestrup as a farmer who finds a bedraggled Sarah at his doorstep, and makes a choice that changes both their lives in ways neither could have imagined.

"Sarah's Key" was directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner, who co-wrote the screenplay with Serge Joncour based on the novel by Tatiana De Rosnay. They keep the mood and tone of the film in a perfect balance between the joy of discovery in letting the narrative unspool, and the tragic nature of what is to be found.

The reason WWII remains such a fertile source of movies, both based on fact and fiction, is that there are millions of stories like Sarah's waiting, needing to be told.

3.5 stars out of four

Review: "Easy Virtue"

I wanted to like "Easy Virtue" more than I did.

This new adaptation of the Noel Coward play -- the first one was in 1928, directed by a fledgling Alfred Hitchcock -- has all the ingredients of a delightful romp. You've got the war between the classes, as upstart American girl marries into upper-crust British society. Plus the fact that she's a proto-feminist who races cars and treasures her independence sets up lots of opportunities for puncturing the hot-air balloon of English aristocracy.

The movie revs up promisingly, but never quite seems to get into gear.

I have to say I think the problem is Jessica Biel in the starring role. She just doesn't have the ear for Coward's erudite dialogue and subtly serrated wit. Particularly standing next to accomplished thespians like Colin Firth and Kristen Scott Thomas, her line readings sound so ... well, read.

Her physical performance plays better. Wearing a platinum blonde bob and killer Roaring' 20s ensembles, Biel struts into a room with verve and style. It's the sort of role where everyone is supposed to stop what they're doing and pay attention to her, and Biel seems to welcome the stares.

Her character, Larita, has just married John Whittaker (Ben Barnes), the impressionable scion of the Whittaker clan. Their expansive summer home looks like something out of a picture book, but there's a rot in the foundation.

Mr. Whittaker (Firth) only reluctantly came home from the Great War, and the way he putters around the estate, unshaven and paying little attention to his wife or even their financial state, suggests that much of him remains permanently abroad.

Mrs. Whittaker (Scott Thomas) is all velvet and steel, an implacable foe hidden by a veneer of perfect manners. She takes an instant dislike to Larita, because of who she is but also because Mrs. Whittaker was vying to marry John off to one of the local aristocracy.

Their two unmarried daughters are Marion and Hilda (Katherine Parkinson and Kimberly Nixon), whose dimming prospects pushes them toward the apathy of their father and the domineering ways of their mother, respectively.

Director/co-writer Stephan Elliott makes an interesting choice to weave period pop songs into his scenes, sometimes even having the characters sing along with tunes like "Mad About the Boy" and "Let's Misbehave." Many of the songs are by Noel Coward and Cole Porter, and the sound is delightful, but sometimes the music intrudes on the film's mood rather than enhancing it.

The most enjoyment to be had out of "Easy Virtue" is the dialogue, especially the escalating ripostes and parries between Larita and Mrs. Whittaker. As more of Larita's past comes to light, their simmering feud turns to all-out war.

Elliott and co-screenwriter Sheridan Jobbins change around much of Coward's play, although the basic architecture remains, as well as the delicious barbs. "Have you had as many lovers as they say?" Mrs. Whittaker asks Larita, who replies, "Of course not. Hardly any of them actually loved me."

It's exchanges like this that make "Easy Virtue," despite its shortcomings, a modest delight.

2.5 stars