Sarah's Key

French writer and director Gilles Paquet-Brenner explores the French connection to the Holocaust in this drama. A journalist's research leads her to discover a dark past that hits too close to home that involves a Jewish family with an harrowing secret. Paquet-Brenner's film suffers from the back and forth between two stories that undercuts the dramatic impact of. The film never recovers from harrowing sequence where a young girl hides her younger brother in a closet. The Holocaust is never an easy topic despite its exhaustive treatment in the history of cinema which only a handful of films successfully explored while plenty of others failed in various degrees. The always excellent Kristin Scott Thomas delivers another solid performance with a supporting cast that includes Niels Arestrup and Aidan Quinn. 1001 Films' coverage of films on DVD.