[5] In 1942, 10-year-old Sarah Starzynski hides her younger brother from French police by locking him in a secret closet and telling him to stay there until she returns.

She takes the key with her when she and her parents are transported to the Vélodrome d'Hiver, where they are held in inhuman conditions by the Paris Police and French Secret Service.

Sarah and Rachel fall asleep in a dog house at a farm where they are discovered by the farmers, Jules and Genevieve Dufaure.

In the present, the French husband of journalist Julia inherits the apartment of his grandparents (his elderly father was the boy who opened the door to Sarah in August 1942).

Julia begins an obsessive quest to find any trace of Sarah, eventually learning of her life in Brooklyn and finally locating William in Italy.

Julia ultimately decides against an abortion, has a baby girl, divorces her husband and eventually moves with her daughters to New York City.

Two years later, William, having contacted Julia, meets her for a late lunch in a restaurant favored by Sarah and gives her additional information about his mother that the Dufaures had.

The website's consensus reads: "Sarah's Key is an absorbing, impeccably-acted Holocaust drama with minor plot issues.

[8] Although British, Scott-Thomas delivers her English dialogue in an American accent, for most of the film she speaks fluent French as she has lived in France for many years.

The Holocaust holds personal meaning for her because her in-laws were forced to flee their homes as children, and only avoided the concentration camps by hiding in the countryside.

[12] For The Guardian, the problem is that in modern times, as we leave Brooklyn, Paris and Florence in the footsteps of Sarah, things look a bit like a TV movie.