My Name Is Sara

It's 1942 eastern Poland. Jewish fugitive Sara Guralnick (Zuzanna Surowy) is on the run with her older brother. She leaves him behind and takes on the identity of her longtime Christian friend. She becomes the nanny to Ukrainian couple, Nadya and Pavlo. It's a struggle to maintain her secret as she navigates the dangerous world.

It's a harrowing true story. The actors are great. It's danger for Sara at every turn. The movie paints a compelling complicated picture of that world. The complicated personal relationships are just the tip of the iceberg. There is a reality to the story that doesn't feel constructed.

My Name Is Sara (2019) was directed by Steven Oritt. It stars Zuzanna Surowy as Sara. Sara is from Poland. Her family is destroyed by the German occupiers, but she manages to escape over the border into Ukraine.

Sara is able to convince the farmers that she's Christian. (It's not clear whether they believe her, or whether they just need another farmhand.)

This is more than just a survival movie. The farmers are not just a downtrodden mass of people under attack by the Germans and the partisans, both of whom want the food from their farm. Relationships are complex and every action is fraught with danger.

Zuzanna Surowy's performance is amazing. You really believe her as a brave young woman who promises her mother that she will survive the Holocaust. I was surprised to learn that Surowy wasn't a professional. She's a first-time actor who still manages to carry the film forward.

My Name is Sara has an appalling IMDb rating of 6.4. This is one of the films about which I write, "Did those people see the same movie that I saw?" I consider the film to be outstanding, and rated it 9.

We watched this movie virtually,, courtesy of the excellent Rochester Jewish Film Festival.

This was a wonderful film. Had I known when watching it that it was a true story I would have been even more immersed. The Nazis and the persecution of the Jews takes a back seat to what is really a movie about people living in the country in that region during the war and the interactions between the lead character Sara and the other two main characters. The acting is completely believable. There is nothing contrived. Nothing felt like padding. So glad that movies like this are being made. A true education about human beings.

IN A NUTSHELL: MY NAME IS SARA tells the true-life story of 13-year-old Sara Góralniak whose family was killed by Nazis in September of 1942. After a grueling escape to the Ukrainian countryside, Sara finds refuge in a small village, passing as a Christian, where she is taken in by a farmer and his young wife. She soon discovers the dark secrets of her employers' marriage, compounding the greatest secret she must strive to protect, her true identity.

Born in a displaced person's camp, Executive Producer Mickey Shapiro is the son of Sara Góralniak and Asa Shapiro. He is involved in multiple charities and organizations dedicated to preserving the memory of the Holocaust, including Steven Spielberg's USC Shoah Foundation. Mickey credits his family history as the inspiration for his philanthropy.

The film was written by David Himmelstein and directed by Steven Oritt.

THINGS I LIKED: I'm always fascinated by WWII movies, not just the action flicks, but also ones like this that show the human drama in the everyday lives of the people who tried to survive the atrocities of the times.

Most audiences won't recognize anyone in the cast. I'm always happy to be introduced to new actors in the industry. For the most part, the acting was very good. The cast includes Zuzanna Surowy, Pawel Krolikowski, Michalina Olszanska, Eryk Lubos, Aleksandra Pisula, and Ksawery Szlenkier, among others.

Zuzana Surowy plays Sara and does a fantastic job, especially considering she had no acting experience and had never been in a movie before! It's fascinating to watch her transform from a frightened young girl to one who finds the inner strength to do what she must to protect herself.

Every scene looked very realistic and plausible. This is not a sanitized story, but one that paints a bloody, honest depiction of how poor peasants lived in Ukraine during WWII.

The film does a great job of showing everyday country people who are just trying to survive World War II. It takes a very non-judgemental approach, revealing that we never know what we'll do in a situation until we are living in it.

None of the characters are without flaws. They are revealed to have dark secrets and we see their personal struggles each day.

This movie is especially painful to watch knowing that current Ukrainian people are being murdered and driven from their homes by the Russians at this very moment.

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE: Many of the scenes occur at night, which might make it hard to see while watching on a small device once the movie goes to streaming.

The movie begins with subtitles, but then quickly becomes a movie with spoken English. Some viewers might be worried it's a foreign film that will be hard to understand.

So much spitting! Ha ha Sometimes it's just grimy men doing their thing, while other times, it's a political statement.

There are a few bad acting moments.

The filmmaking is fairly basic and simple.

It attempts to tell "the hero's journey" but without the traditional story arc.

TIPS FOR PARENTS: Some profanity Talk of German Nazis Full frontal female nudity of prisoners You see an unmarried couple having intimate relations, although you don't see skin or details You see dead people hanging from a tree You see dead animals and bloody rabbits caught in a trap We see people shot to death.

THEMES: Survival Religion War Selfishness Honesty Self-protection Family Inner strength Self-reliance Relying on the land The value of human life

This is a great movie, with a wonderful lead. Rather than a war story, it is more of a character study. A really interesting and enjoyable film and it certainly deserves a lot higher than the 6.3 rating it has. Possibly many of those of who watched it thought it would be a war movie with lots of action and were disappointed, so they gave it a poor rating.