Silent Running (USA, 1972)
Directed by Doug Trumball
Starring Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin, Jesse Vint

It's long been fashionable for film reviewers to slag off films for being sentimental. The problem is not so much the notion of sentimentality in and of itself, as the context and manner in which it is applied. Criticising Steven Spielberg for being sentimental is simultaneously apt and foolish - apt when it meddles with or cheapens a dark subject matter, as with Schindler's List, but foolish when it is complimentary and integral, as with E.T. or Close Encounters.Silent Running's reputation has suffered from a similar stigma, namely that a grown-up science fiction film with serious thematic intentions cannot bow to something as feeble as human emotion. The clichéd view of 1970s science fiction, created by 2001 and cemented by Solaris, is one of a cold, clinical, existential world where any concession to audience emotion is strictly verboten. But while such an approach worked wonders for Stanley Kubrick and Andrei Tarkovsky, Silent Running is still a damn fine film which proves that substance and sentimentality can go together.Doug Trumball made Silent Running in direct response to the perceived coldness and clinical precision of 2001. Having created many of the special effects on Kubrick's film, including the iconic star-gate sequence, he sought to make a film about the future of humanity in which computers and apes were not the most human characters. Where Kubrick's films focussed on Mankind, Trumball wishes to look at people as individuals. And where Kubrick balanced Humanity's physical insignificance with its God-like potential, Trumball praises Man's capacity for compassion even in the face of insignificance, disinterest or despair.If one was feel as cold and calculating as HAL, one could easily dismiss Silent Running as nothing more than 'hippies in space'. Being a product of the early-1970s, when America was experiencing the death throes of hippie culture, such connotations are to some extent inevitable. It is undoubtedly true that Bruce Dern's character conforms to popular, if cynical, stereotypes of hippies, from his loose-fitting clothing and drawling delivery to his obsession with nature which many (the crew included) would consider unhealthy.One of the problems with Silent Running from this point of view is its questionable attitude towards mankind in the pursuit of pro-nature or 'hippie' ideals. The position towards technology is ambivalent; Dern yearns for a monastic existence where Man eats the fruits of His own labours, but it is ultimately the machines which sustain the forest. More problematic is the implication that preserving nature is more important than human life, to the point where murdering his crewmates appears to be justified. The film could be making the point that one has to go the hard yards in the name of one's principles, but it remains questionable whether in its content or its presentation.But if we put this immediate concern to the back of our minds, Silent Running's ecological theme emerges as more than a simple choice between Nature and Man, or Man and Machine. It is more prominently a film about harmony, about how the march of progress has made humans overly dependent on technology. Technological progress, including the development of space travel, has increased the standard of living of the astronauts to such an extent that they take their resources for granted.Dern's colleagues no longer care about the forest or the food they eat because they have been living in a world where their every want is met. They behave almost like spoilt children, spending their time racing around the cargo bay and joking around. Dern's position is similar to that of the 19th-century Arcadians like John Ruskin and Henry David Thoreau, writers who warned against the increasing luxury and apathy brought on by mechanical progress. Dern is the Arcadian among the lackadaisical industrialists, still able to enjoy himself but ever watchful of the consequences of progress, and mindful of the alternative which could soon cease to exist.When WALL-E was released three years ago, numerous critics compared the opening section to Silent Running. There is an obvious parallel in the role of robots tending to the Earth (or what is left of it), and in the loneliness of this occupation both practically and philosophically. Like WALL-E, Dern and his droids are going against the grain to do what they believe is right, and both have developed eccentricities through isolation which has caused them to deviate from their original 'programming'. With WALL-E, it is his bizarre passion for Hello Dolly!; with Dern, it is his desire to teach droids how to play poker.Although WALL-E could not have existed without Silent Running, it remains the superior of the two films. Although one of the longer PIXAR efforts, it feels tightly structured and well-paced, while there are long sections of Silent Running which feel superfluous or needlessly slow. This may be down to the involvement of Michael Cimino at a script level; his first writing credit in Hollywood contains the same flaws in pace and emphasis which would scupper him as a director. The poker scene, for instance, feels like it shouldn't be there, or at least like it should be a lot shorter.Parts of Silent Running have also dated quite badly. Peter Schickele's soundtrack has stood the test of time rather well, but Joan Baez' warblings are a distinctly Marmite experience. Some of the dialogue is preachy, with Dern going over many of the same arguments to the point of exhaustion. But to be fair, it is very difficult to sustain a story with a limited number of locations and characters without the luxury of extended dream sequences (Solaris) or multiple versions of the characters (Moon). Trumball may be no Kubrick, but all in all he has done a reasonable job.One aspect which hasn't dated, however, is the special effects. When Trumball was interviewed recently for the Blu-Ray release, he commented that organic, miniature or optical effects date better than CG visuals because they are more "photo-realistically impressive", i.e. have weight and tactility. The external shots of the Valley Forge are shot from the correct perspective so that we aren't conscious of them being model shots, and the explosions look and feel both realistic and custom-built.The most illuminating special effect, however, is the three drones which Dern uses to tend to the forests after commandeering the Valley Forge. The drones, inspired by characters in Tod Browning's Freaks, were created by double amputees walking on their hands. This and the facial structures of the drones create a human-like movement which we can recognise and use as a starting point for empathy.What makes Silent Running remarkable, and ultimately successful, is the strength of its emotional pull. The tactility of the special effects, the honesty of the script and the tender nature of the final act has the same effect that the ending of E. T. does; you feel as though you have earned the right to blub your eyes out because of how well the characters have been formed and how much you have enjoyed their company. Much like The Man Who Fell To Earth, the emotional weight of the characters allows us to overlook or forgive any narrative shortcomings and enjoy having our hearts broken.Silent Running remains an underrated and underappreciated science fiction film. It's not without its flaws, whether narrative or otherwise, and it has to take a back seat to 2001 both in ambition and in execution. But what it lacks in awe and spectacle it makes up for in heartache, coupled with a good-natured and welcome intelligence. WALL-E may have since surpassed it, but it remains compelling viewing.

Rating:
Verdict: An underrated sci-fi heartbreaker

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (USA, 2011)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Starring Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg

Because of the high regard in which Tintin is held around the world, it's fair to assume that any film adaptation would fall short of the mark in some way, shape or form. For all the charm and appeal of past adaptations, in film, TV and on the stage, none of them have truly captured the magic and intrigue of Hergé's iconic hero. With this in mind, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson have delivered a film of real brio and excitement which, while by no means definitive, is definitely worth your time.While the marriage between Spielberg directing and Jackson producing seems like a match made in heaven, both have been guilty recently of falling short of the mark - Spielberg with the unremarkable Indy 4, and Jackson with his misjudged take on The Lovely Bones. Likewise, it is not safe to assume that their combined affection for the source material will translate into a brilliant adaptation. Tim Burton has long professed his love for Alice in Wonderland, but when he finally got the chance to express said love, he came a cropper.Fittingly enough, the film begins with some Burton-esque opening credits, in which we are gradually introduced to the Tintin universe while the various names fly past. The opening animation gleefully replicates the feel of the comics, drawing on the plot of The Seven Crystal Balls and capturing every detail, right down to the drawn-on gasps. It has the same playful feel as the Pink Panther opening credits, and goes some way to both setting the scene and reassuring the fans that they are in safe hands.It is also a relief that Spielberg and Jackson's big creative decision quickly pays off (and no, I don't mean the 3D). The Adventures of Tintin was shot entirely in motion capture, with post-production taking nearly a year to accurately re-create the comics. The technology as employed here is the best it's ever been at capturing people: it is incredibly photorealistic but lacks the eerie, dead-eyed quality of Robert Zemeckis' efforts. As a side point, digital animation has a habit of making characters seem ballooned and bloated, which suits Haddock and the two detectives rather well.When War of the Worlds was released in 2005, Terry Gilliam remarked that Spielberg was a man who "makes brilliant scenes but can't make a movie anymore." Regardless of one's views on War of the Worlds (it's better than the original), it is undoubtedly true that the highlights of Tintin are the set-pieces. Of course, set-pieces in and of themselves do not make for a gripping piece of narrative. But to dismiss Spielberg and Jackson's expertise in this area is to do both of them a great disservice.The set-pieces in The Adventures of Tintin are consistently inventive and exciting. The pirate battle, which is told by Haddock in flashback, finds two ships getting locked by their masts at right angles during a storm; people are running up and down the various riggings with fire, water and gunfire all around them. It kicks all four Pirates of the Caribbean films into a cocked three-cornered hat, and reminds you of the classic pirate and swashbuckling films of old-school Hollywood.Equally spectacular is the city chase, in which the three scrolls containing the location of the treasure change hands on multiple occasions. During this ten-minute sequence, Tintin and Haddock chase the bad guys in a jeep, one of whom has a hawk carrying the scrolls. At one point Tintin's bike breaks in half and he uses the front-wheel as a zipwire to slide down a telegraph line and capture the scrolls. In another moment, he is literally hanging onto the hawk as it fights to stay in the air. While all this is going on, a tank careers into a hotel and starts rolling down a street with the hotel attached. It finally comes to a halt right on the sea front, and the owner comes out and adds another star to its rating - a witty pay-off that could only have come from the man who gave us Indiana Jones.Set-pieces like this are thrillingly executed, and leave the ten-year-old boy in me screaming "Wow!". But there is a side-effect to all the comparisons with Indy. The more the similarities keep stacking up, the more you wish that Spielberg could have gone back and simply filmed them for real. Most of the stunts I have listed would have looked amazing in real life and could be achieved without much in the way of CGI. Seeing it animated, especially in motion capture, deprives us of that raw physical thrill that we got from Indy, so that while the film as a whole is more exciting than Indy 4, it's a lot less endearing than the original trilogy.And it's not just Indy that Spielberg is tipping his fedora to in this film. There are multiple big references to Jaws: the first comes in the shark falling from the ceiling on board the ship, and the second with Tintin's quiff bobbing above water like a shark's fin as he sneaks up on the plane he downed with a pistol. References like this produce knowing laughs and are in a sense reassuring: we are definitely getting Spielberg in proper popcorn mode, whether by choice or through Jackson's gentle persuasion.More problematic than the Indy resemblances is the story itself. The film combines the narratives of three of the books - The Secret of the Unicorn, Red Rackham's Treasure and The Crab with the Golden Claws. There is some reasoning behind this, since many of the Tintin stories are quite short and self-contained. This is one reason why the series worked up to a point on TV and especially well on radio (regardless of Andy Serkis' best efforts, Leo McKern remains the definitive Haddock).Despite the assured writing talents of Edgar Wright and Steven Moffatt, The Adventures of Tintin's story is decidedly stodgy. It takes a good twenty minutes for the film to get into gear, not from adjusting to the visuals but from getting used to the massively expository tone. Combining three stories together means that plot points are merged and mashed together awkwardly, causing us to miss out on great moments and characters. There is no room for Professor Calculus, Max Bird or the sunken submarine. Leaving out the latter makes us question why it wasn't enough to do Unicorn and Rackham together, turning a two-part story into 90 minutes.The supporting characters in the film are enjoyable but all a little slim. Thomson and Thompson (Nick Frost and Simon Pegg) are quite funny in all their little scenes, but their limited role in the search for treasure leaves us wondering why they keep turning up at all. Bianca Castafiore, the opera singer whom Haddock despises, only turns up very briefly, and the film almost misses the big gag that she can't actually sing. Worst of all is Snowy: while physically expressive, he doesn't get to 'talk' or impart much of his inner thoughts to the audience. In the absence of a 'talking' Snowy, you need a stronger third character, like Professor Calculus, to complete the triangle.There seems to be a trend in modern screenwriting to take a sideways view at stories which are good and hardy enough to be told straight. Even if Disney had been constantly sanitising his vision, Burton's Alice in Wonderland would have been a much better film if it had told the story as it has always been enjoyed. While there is no such possible contempt shown for Hergé, it is something that should be borne in mind for when Jackson comes to direct the sequel.The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn is a decent and enjoyable romp, at least when viewed in 2D. Neither Spielberg or Jackson are firing on all cylinders - though the latter's involvement with The Hobbit is as good an excuse as you need. But that said it is more enjoyable than Indy 4, and perhaps the closest that Spielberg has come to matching the spirit of Indy in the last ten years of his career. In the end it's flawed but good fun, and it will be interesting to see where things go from here.

Rating:
Verdict: Spectacular but narratively stodgy

Gojira (Japan, 1954)
Directed by Ishiro Honda
Starring Akira Takarada, Momoka Kochi, Akihiko Hirata, Takashi Shimura

Action movies are often criticised for being stupid. They are looked down upon by critics and blamed by social commentators for causing the perceived anti-intellectualism of today's youth. While there are many examples of this genre, or indeed any genre that would fit the bill, action movies are capable of being just as intelligent or insightful as their more artistic counterparts. Gojira is a classic case in point, retaining its relative intelligence in spite of its dramatic creakiness.The cultural influence that Gojira exerts is undeniable. Apart from generating a legion of sequels, crossover films and one god-awful American remake, it has become one of the most iconic Japanese artistic creations. But aside from its cemented status as a symbol of Western perceptions of Japan, its influence on cinema worldwide is just as marked. As well as directly inspiring works like Cloverfield and The Host, its imagery has influenced everyone from Matt Groening to Steven Spielberg, who dubbed the monster's death scream onto the end of Duel.For better or worse, Gojira either created or cemented many of the conventions of the modern monster movie. The groundwork may have been laid by King Kong and The Creature from the Black Lagoon, but the conventions founded in Gojira are now so endemic that they deserve recognition. We have the central romance between two people who are destined to be together, set against the backdrop of their home being destroyed or, as with Jurassic Park, other people they care about being put in mortal danger. While most of the characters want to destroy the monster, one person wants to keep it alive to see what they can learn for it (a variation of King Kong, in which one character wants to make money from it). And there is a distant or geeky scientist who doesn't want to help, but ends up possessing the only thing that can stop the monster.Like many classic foreign-language films, Gojira had a rough time with the American distributors. Just as Metropolis was heavily butchered to reduce its running time, so Gojira was taken apart and restructured in such a way that the American version looked like a totally different film. This version, called Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, was dubbed into English with new footage of Raymond Burr playing a reporter called Steve Martin - which leaves everybody free to remark that the American version is a complete joke. The disrespect which Terry Morse showed for the original is plain to see: even with the reams of new footage, the new version was 10 minutes shorter than the original.Ironically, one of the big problems with Gojira is something which is characteristic of American action movies, particularly with more contemporary offerings. Like many recent CG-heavy action films, Gojira does end up being dominated by its special effects. Some of the set-pieces are incredible even now, such as the central 10-minute sequence of the monster breathing fire and laying waste to Tokyo. But like the American remake, the extent to which the set-pieces are emphasised prompts questions about the workings of the monster - chief amongst them being, why would it help a lizard to be fire-breathing if it lived underwater?This dominance of effects is solidified by Gojira's melodramatic plot. It's wrong to attack one of the definitive monster movies for falling into the clichés it created, just as it's wrong to criticise The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari for having a twist ending. But you can still see all the plot points coming a mile off, and the characters are so clearly drawn from a visual point of view that you don't really have to second-guess. The moment you see the character with a scar and an eye-patch, you know there is something shifty about him.There is some dispute in critical circles over how good or original Gojira's effects are. Roger Ebert, who called it "a bad film, but with an undeniable urgency", argued that the effects in King Kong were much more state-of-the-art, describing Godzilla the monster as "awkward" and "crude". It's an argument that has never been properly settled, not even when the two monsters went head to head in King Kong vs. Godzilla eight years after this.In the end, the only way to judge the validity of Gojira's effects is whether or not they succeed in giving the monster character. This is not simply a case of whether or not he/ she/ it looks like a man in a beanbag wandering around on a set; it is whether the physical form taken by Godzilla/Gojira conveys or achieves the desired emotional response. The short answer to this is yes, because we do believe that the monster has intelligence and a personality. We aren't necessarily in floods of tears when the oxygen destroyer kills him, but there is still the feeling that something physical and tangible has departed, something in which we invested and believed.Where Gojira differs from, and perhaps improves on King Kong is its political subtext. The film is an engrossing allegory for Japan's reaction to the events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and to the on-going US nuclear tests occurring in the Pacific. This was something which was not widely reported in the American press at the time, which coupled with political pressure might explain why the US version cut out most of the subtext.The parallels Gojira draws between real-life events and those of the characters would have been strikingly clear at the time, and are arguably more so to us nearly 60 years later. The underwater explosions which are reported when the first ships sink are an echo of the after-effects of Bikini Atoll: the Americans exploded a device two-and-a-half times larger than expected, leaving hundreds of people within the supposed safety zone with acute radiation poisoning. The harrowing shots showing the aftermath of Gojira's destruction of Tokyo could be lifted straight from The World at War. Considering that Japan was still recovering from the long-term effects of the war, including these kinds of scenes was decidedly brave.There is also a direct parallel between the real-life and fictitious characters. Dr. Daisuke Serizawa, played by Akihiko Hirata, is a convincing reflection of Professor Robert Oppenheimer, one of the chief scientists at the Manhattan Project which created the first bombs. When we are taken inside his lab, there is a mention of his "German friends", a sly nod to the fact that German and Austrian scientists pioneered many of the components of the atomic bomb. Serizawa refuses to use the device because he knows how devastating it can be on a small scale, a possible nod to Oppenheimer's mixed feelings following the Trinity test. While Oppenheimer remarked that he had "become death, a destroyer of worlds", Serizawa dies alongside his invention, lest it ever be used again.Gojira, like King Kong before it, uses the monster to physicalize a deep-rooted or pertinent fear within humanity. It explores the fears surrounding nuclear war, or more general fears about a seemingly unbeatable weapon. Gojira is characterised as an ancient monster, somewhere between Jules Verne and H. P. Lovecraft, rudely awakened from its long slumber by the nuclear tests. It is simultaneously a symbol of nuclear war itself, the unforeseen consequences or fallout (in both senses), and a physicalisation of the dark, self-preserving aggression at the heart of every human being.It is rare that you get a monster movie, then or now, with such thoroughly intelligent subtext. But the film does have a couple of dramatic shortcomings which hamper its ability to convey these ideas. Because the film is constructed like a melodrama, complete with screaming heroines and muscular heroes, there isn't much in the way of tension in the scenes between Gojira's attacks. Whereas The War of the Worlds had moments of real threat, where it seemed like the aliens would win, Gojira always has a feeling of certainty about its outcome which is only partially mitigated by the old man's warnings at the end. Character development is in rather short supply, something which even Akira Ifukube's great soundtrack can't make up for.Considering its budget and the development of special effects, Gojira holds up surprisingly well. It is more thought-provoking and emotionally involving than The War of the Worlds, if nothing else because it holds its nerve and gets the ending right. Its dramatic shortcomings are more or less made up for by the emotional impact of the more harrowing scenes, and the monster itself is pretty convincing. As a film in and of itself it's flawed and ropey in places, and while it can't hold a candle to King Kong (in either version), it is essential viewing.

Rating:
Verdict: A flawed but memorable monster movie

Sarah's Key (France, 2011)
Directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner
Starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Melusine Mayance, Niels Arestrup, Frederic Pierrot

It's well-nigh impossible to make a film about the Holocaust without either lecturing the audience or slipping into inappropriate sentimentality. The best examples of this genre (if such a term is appropriate) are character-driven pieces like The Pianist and Life is Beautiful. These films focus on the utterly human reactions of individuals caught up in Europe's darkest hour, and steadfastly refuse to sugar-coat the brutality for the sake of holding an audience.

Sarah's Key is an engrossing and compelling addition to the Holocaust film canon, which showcases both the qualities and the pitfalls of the genre. For the majority of its running time, it is an enticing and often moving drama which finds characters in the present day interacting meaningfully with their collective past. But all its hard work doesn't entirely pay off, thanks to a melodramatic final act which tarnishes the result.To give credit where it's due, Sarah's Key succeeds in the most important area, namely in its rendering or recreation of the Holocaust. The film explores an aspect of the Final Solution which has not been previously addressed on film, and it approaches the subject with courage and determination. The scenes at the Velodrome d'Hiver, where thousands of French Jews were rounded up and housed without food or sanitation, are suitably unpleasant and very tough to watch, particularly the shots of human excrement or a woman falling from the ceiling.Gilles Paquet-Brenner's camerawork is well-judged in these scenes and is surprisingly accomplished for a first-time director. During the scenes in the Vel d'Hiv, he uses long aerial shots to show the isolation of Sarah's family before they are sent to the camps, showing the squallor and hideous conditions without hammering the point home. In the camps his hand-held work is more frenetic: when the mothers are separated from their children, his camera darts all over the place to capture the sense of panic on both sides. This approach makes us feel as confused as the characters would be, and these scenes lack some of the staged quality that hampered Schindler's List.The film also benefits from a fantastic performance by the young actress playing Sarah. Melusine Mayance is a bewitching screen presence, and she conveys the innocence of the character without looking like she has been directed to do so. Like her counterpart Saoirse Ronan, she has wisdom beyond her years but is not an adult in a child's body, forced to act like a child. If she continues to deliver on the strength of this performance, she will be breaking audience's hearts for decades to come.Among its war film counterparts, Sarah's Key is on one level closest to The Pianist. Apart from Kristin Scott Thomas' links to Roman Polanski (they worked together on Bitter Moon), both films are primarily about survival. Both Sarah Starzynski and Wladyslaw Szpilman are not heroic in the traditional or conventional sense. They endure the Holocaust by neither fighting the authorities head-on nor rolling over and praying for death to come. In the truck on the way to the camp, an old man shows Sarah a ring full of poison, and says: "No-one can choose when I die."

The film shows Sarah's transition from innocence to adulthood and a new life in America, via the heartbreaking discovery of her brother's death. Having hidden her baby brother in a secret room when the French police arrive, Sarah is sustained by the hope and belief that he is still alive. This hope drives her every action, from asking the brunette lady with forged papers to let him out to tunnelling under the wire to get out of the camp. The death of her brother haunts Sarah, preventing her from ever feeling happy or free from her past. When she moves to America, her future husband calls her the most beautiful and saddest woman he could imagine, and eventually her grief cancels out whatever hope she had left.Both of the protagonists in Sarah's Key - Sarah and the journalist investigating her - experience large amounts of guilt over what happened. While Sarah's guilt is intensely personal (a literal skeleton in the closet), Julia's is part of a national or continental guilt that such awful events were allowed to happen. One man she meets works hard to put names to all the photographs of the Vel d'Hiv victims, commenting that it is painful but the right thing to do. Because this guilt is conveyed through naturalistic conversation, with the camera as observer rather than interrogator, we don't feel like we are being constantly made to hang our collective heads in shame.One particular aspect of the events at Vel d'Hiv reinforces the film's message of those closest to the horror turning a blind eye, or even encouraging what was going on. When the Jews are rounded up in 1942, we see a number of native French observers cheering and jeering from the rooftops. The Jews are depicted as inferior not just to the Aryan race, but to native Frenchmen, with even those who have lived in France for decades being degraded and derided. It's a fitting means to distinguish between race and nationality, concepts which became ideologically fused under Nazism.

Both the success and the failure of Sarah's Key are contained in the narrative's framing device - that is, the cutting back and forth between Sarah and Julia's stories. On the one hand, such an approach makes perfect sense when looking at something as harrowing as the Holocaust. Kristin Scott Thomas represents the audience as present-day observers, historically removed from the events by both her age and her family background. The film admirably admits that, even with the sheer amount of information available, we cannot come close to recreating the Holocaust on screen. Unless we experienced it personally (as Polanski did), we have to view things from a distance, pursuing the truth without ever feeling the need to judge.On the other hand, the constant switching between the stories does start to become jarring as Julia's situation changes. Sarah's story is consistently more engaging and involving than the events in the present day, and while it never feels like we are watching two different films, we find ourselves longing for Julia's sections of the story to be hurried along. Some of the editing choices are borderline crass - for instance, Julia appears on the site of Vel d'Hiv just after Sarah is taken away.

The other problem with Sarah's Key is its increasing reliance on melodrama which comprises the integrity of both sides of the story. Some of the first traits are seen in Sarah's section, where one of the French camp guards not only spares her life but helps her escape. The film is trying to be as nuanced as Paul Verhoeven's Black Book, showing that not all French collaborators were Nazi puppets. But the scene still feels contrived to the point of being totally facile.This becomes a greater problem in the present-day sections. After it emerges that Sarah is no longer alive, the loose ends flail and fray as the film searches for some kind of cathartic ending. Arguably having her still alive, to be discovered by Julia in the final scene, would have been more predictable and less rewarding. But the ending as it is feels inconclusive in a non-rewarding way, and the coda with the voice-over feels tacked-on.Sarah's Key is a flawed but admirable attempt to explore a difficult subject matter from an original angle. Kristin Scott Thomas turns in another fine performances, with a flawless American accent and unique subtlety in her facial expressions. The film is ultimately compromised by its later sections, which do undermine or cheapen a lot of what has gone before. But it is still a solid debut effort which suggests future promise for both its young performers and its director.

Rating:
Verdict: Moving, memorable but sadly melodramatic