Sophie Scholl

"Last stanza in the life of Germany's most famous anti-Nazi heroine gets a cleanly directed, straight up-and-down and finally moving retelling in "Sophie Scholl: The Final Days"..."

"'Sophie Scholl' is not a great film... it is unadorned, controlled, and workaday. There are no gunfights, no whippings or bone-breaks (none that we see firsthand, at any rate), and, from Sophie, little more than a single howl of distress. We hear sporadic, thriller-like thuds of music, but the bulk of the film pursues a steady beat..."

""Sophie Scholl" conveys what it must have been like to be a young, smart, idealistic dissenter in Nazi Germany, where no dissent was tolerated. This gripping true story, directed in a cool, semi-documentary style ... challenges you to gauge your own courage and strength of character should you find yourself in similar circumstances..."

"This is a fiercely sombre movie, taken up mostly with Scholl's questioning - but powerfully acted, particularly by Julia Jentsch as Scholl, whose courage and humanity are never more obvious than when she is hauled up before the grotesque bullies and buffoons of Nazi Germany's judiciary..."

"Most of the film is taken up by Sophie's interrogation, which director Rothemund observes with a clinical, documentary detachment, devoid of incidental music to heighten the mood... the main performance by Jentsch is deeply impressive, a miracle of dignity and self-possession..."

"'Sophie Scholl,' an Oscar nominee for best foreign film, contains no artificial suspense or drama ... It is based on fact and uses the transcripts of Scholl's actual interrogation and trial, as kept by the Gestapo and liberated when East Germany fell...Cool and calm, she answers every question precisely. She has an alibi that is almost good enough. The effect of this scene is so powerful that I leaned forward like a jury member, wanting her to get away with it so I could find her innocent..."

"Though at times the filmmakers present their heroine as Saint Sophie, Jentsch keeps her feet on the ground, shifting smoothly from cool denial to impassioned defiance without any histrionics. Meanwhile, Held strikes a memorably ambivalent note as the Gestapo inspector who scorns Sophie's convictions but admires her courage..."