Sarah's Key
Weinstein Company, The | Release Date: July 22, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
59
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
17
Mixed:
11
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
The Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttJul 18, 2011
The movie gathers momentum with a steady, assured pace, accumulating incidents, characters, secrets and lies until the rush of events is absolutely transfixing. Cinema can sometimes rival the novel in compulsive intensity and Sarah's Key is one such example. Read full review
88
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreAug 28, 2011
That makes Sarah's Key that rare Holocaust tale that punches through the cobwebs of history and its dry, inhuman statistics, and brings that terrible past to life. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJul 21, 2011
Sarah's Key is more powerful than you expect, maybe even more powerful than it should be. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleAug 4, 2011
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. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianMarc MohanJul 28, 2011
Sarah's story is harrowing and powerfully told, as she valiantly attempts to escape and return home with the key to free her brother. Director Gilles Paquet-Brenner doesn't stint on depicting the indignities and violence inflicted even on children, and Mayance's performance is exceptionally strong. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJul 28, 2011
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. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie RickeyJul 28, 2011
Excellent performances make the movie effective. Yet the flashbacks have a depth and resonance largely absent from the modern scenes. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezJul 28, 2011
Unlike most films about the Holocaust, which has provided artists with an infinite array of heartrending stories and tragedies, Sarah's Key doesn't spend much time recounting the horrors that Jews suffered during World War II. Read full review
75
USA TodayScott BowlesJul 21, 2011
Sarah's Key is, for the most part, an exercise in reserve. We never see Hitler, never enter battle. Paquet-Brenner (Pretty Things, Walled In), rightly tells his Holocaust story as it now lives: through survivors and descendants. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubTasha RobinsonJul 21, 2011
Veers in and out of conventionality, and ultimately sinks into it at the end. But first, it deals with old types in new ways, raising issues as it raises hackles. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanJul 20, 2011
The Holocaust scenes are wrenching, the past-meets-present dialectics less so. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedJul 19, 2011
Director Gilles Paquet-Brenner has done an elegant job of reducing a complex piece with many components into a riveting narrative that grabs you by the lapels and refuses to loosen its grip. Read full review
70
VarietyAlissa SimonJul 18, 2011
Working in a classical style and genre that rep a far cry from his previous work ("Pretty Things," "Gomez and Tavares, "UV"), Pacquet-Brenner's direction is always respectful if never entirely subtle. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenAug 4, 2011
Although Sarah's Key sometimes seems as though it's about to create a moral equivalency between the two tales, it never crosses that delicate line. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisAug 4, 2011
Luckily, the movie has Scott Thomas. She knows her radiance can't be helped, so she uses it here like a searchlight. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsJul 28, 2011
Although this sober film spares us some of the grim, survivalist details, the harrowing adventure from a girl's perspective is so compelling that Julia's simultaneous sleuthing seems like an unnecessary distraction. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertJul 27, 2011
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. Read full review
60
EmpireAngie ErrigoAug 1, 2011
Exceptional turns by Mélusine Mayance and the ever-excellent Kristin Scott Thomas illuminate a tense and compelling story. The contrived modern-day framing works less well. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicKerry LengelJul 28, 2011
Shown in flashbacks, the story of 10-year-old Sarah Starzynski is powerful, thanks in large part to the luminous screen presence of young Mélusine Mayance. Read full review
60
MovielineMichelle OrangeJul 21, 2011
Though the picture is lovingly and often quite strikingly shot and styled, there are too many dangling and swiftly clipped threads for the film to amount to more than another tasteful Sunday matinee set against one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. Read full review
60
Boxoffice MagazinePam GradyJul 20, 2011
That Sarah's Key never quite descends into melodrama is a credit to the strength of Scott Thomas' performance, more than to the writing. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfJul 19, 2011
When Sarah's Key leans into the horror (as it should), it's harrowing. Alas, that's only half the time. Read full review
55
NPRMark JenkinsJul 22, 2011
The glib story and hectoring structure undermine the filmmakers' best intentions. Read full review
50
IndieWireEric KohnJul 20, 2011
Sarah's need to save her brother provides the initial raison d'être, but with the mystery is resolved early on Sarah's Key turns into a flimsy meditation on grief. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierJul 22, 2011
A dramatic tale of survival and horrific memories struggles against distracting melodrama in Sarah's Key, and unfortunately, melodrama wins. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJul 21, 2011
Ms. Scott Thomas is as intelligent and attractive as ever, but the synthetic world her character inhabits can't compete with a harrowing past that depicts French complicity in Nazi atrocities. Read full review
40
The New York TimesRachel SaltzJul 21, 2011
Undone by its very premise: that the two stories it tells can coexist in the same film. Read full review
40
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonJul 19, 2011
Dutifully follows the template of scores of movies about the Shoah: wringing from atrocity the most unseemly sentimentality. Read full review
38
New York PostKyle SmithJul 22, 2011
Sarah's Key belongs to the Holocaust for Dummies section of Harvey Weinstein's History for Dummies series of mer etricious glossy dramas that ransack global events and turn them into middlebrow women's weepies to fill his trophy case. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineAndrew SchenkerJul 18, 2011
Sarah's Key becomes a musing ("meditation" would be too generous) on the importance of uncovering the past that fails to honestly contemplate why such an act is significant. Read full review
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