MY NAME IS SARA – Review

How many 13-year-olds have the self-discipline to pretend to be someone else for two years, without once revealing the truth even to those closest to her? MY NAME IS SARA is a tense historical survival drama that unfolds more like a thriller, which recounts the true story of 13-year-old Sara Goralnik who concealed her Jewish identity in Nazi-occupied Ukraine for two years, even from the Ukrainian Orthodox farmers with whom she is living.

There is a particularly timely element to this true story film as it is set in western Ukraine, part of which was in Poland when World War II started and part of which was in the Soviet Union, but all of which was occupied by Germany when the story takes place. The film not only tells Sara Goralnik’s harrowing personal story but gives us insights into the plight of Ukrainian farmers during the war, farmers who were brutalized and exploited by the occupying Nazis but also subject to raids from partisans hiding in the woods. As much as they might support the partisans goals in fighting the Nazis, the farmers faced starvation by repeated raids from both sides.

MY NAME IS SARA feels more like a thriller than a historical drama or biography, although it is also those. During World War II, many Jews tried to survive by posing as Christians, and fear of discovery gives such hidden identity stories an inherent tension, but MY NAME IS SARA is exceptional. Not only is young Sara hiding from the Nazis but she has to conceal her Jewish identify from the very family she is living with. The Ukrainian Orthodox Christian farming family is not helping her to hide – or at least not knowingly. In some ways, they were as much a threat to her safety as the Nazis occupying the nearby Ukrainian town, since they not only share their neighbors’ antisemitic attitudes but they were also driven by fear, as the Nazis brutally punish anyone sheltering Jewish refugees. The risk of discovery is ever-present and Sara has no one she can trust, yet must appear calm at all times, a challenge for anyone but all the more so for someone so young.

Sara (newcomer Zuzanna Surowy) and her family lived in Korets in the Poland when the Nazis invaded. Before the war, Korets had a large Jewish population that was well-integrated with the Polish Catholic and Orthodox Christian Ukrainian ones. As the film opens, Sara and her older brother Moishe (Konrad Cichon) are hiding in the woods, after fleeing the ghetto where their parents and two younger brothers are trapped. They are attempting to cross the border into the Soviet Union, an area the Nazis also occupy, with the goal of reaching a farm owned by an old non-Jewish woman that their parents have paid to shelter them. But as soon as they arrive, Moishe realizes they can’t stay, as the nervous woman is likely to betray them. “You would do better without me,” he tells his younger sister, noting that her appearance, with light-colored eyes and hair, makes it easier for her to pass as non-Jewish than his more obviously Jewish features do. The next morning, Sara makes the tough choice to leave while her brother sleeps.

After making her way through the woods, the hungry and tired Sara emerges in a field where an Ukrainian farmer, Ivan (Pawel Królikowski), and his son Grisha (Piotr Nerlewski) are working. She tells Ivan she is looking for work, that her name is Manya Romanchuk and she has run away from a troubled home life in Korets. The farmer eyes her with suspicion, then asks if she is Jewish, which she denies. He demands she make the sign of the cross herself as proof she is Christian. Satisfied with her response, the Ukrainians take her to the farm of Ivan’s brother Pavlo (Eryk Lubos) and his younger wife Nadya (Michalina Olszanska) where Sara can work as a nanny for their two young sons. At the farm, Sara is challenged again to prove she is not Jewish and, again, passes their tests, although her new employers still remain wary.

While Sara faces constant threat of discovery, she also learns things about her Ukrainian farmer employers that can help her. They hate the Nazi occupiers too, and are not so fond of the Russians, with memories of the Soviet famine of the 1930s lingering. She also learns that the husband and wife each have secrets, and each tries to enlist her support in their troubled marriage.

Director Steven Oritt ramps up the tension in this film in a series of nail-biting scenes, and the threat is always in our minds. The true-story is aided by the fact that Oritt interviewed the real Sara Goralnik Shapiro extensively before her death in 2018, information that David Himmelstein used in writing his script. As well as concealing her identity during the war, the real Sara also kept the secret of her war-time experience from her family until late in life. Although it is just being released now into theaters, the drama was made in 2019 with the support of Steven Spielberg’s USC Shoah Foundation and with the real Sara’s son, Mickey Shapiro, serving as executive producer. It has played several film festivals, including the 2020 Miami Jewish Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Film, and the 2019 Warsaw Jewish Film Festival, where it won the David Camera Grand Prix Award. Oritt has made a few documentaries but this is his dramatic feature film debut.

The film was shot on location in Poland with a Polish crew and with a Polish, German, Russian and Ukrainian cast, lending authenticity. It has lovely cinematography by Marian Prokop, who took advantage of the pretty, period Polish locations, aided by nice art direction. The acting is good, with young Zuzanna Surowy particularly impressive as Sara, particularly considering her lack of acting experience. Her still, sad face has a inherent underlying steel to it which serves the film well. Often when the character is asked a fraught question or faces a situation that threatens to expose her, Suwovy’s face remains still and unchanged for a beat, before she smiles and pretends to be pleased or cooperative, a choice that has the effect of making the viewer hold their breathe for a moment, increasing the tension more than one might expect. Director Oritt does a masterful job with keeping tension high overall, without ever wearing us out with the suspense.

As the story unfolds, what is most astonishing is Sara’s ability to pass as Ukrainian Orthodox Christian. Time and again, her employers test her, suspicious that she may be Jewish, asking her to cross herself, eat pork and even recite Christian prayers. Although we eventually learn the reason for her knowledge of Orthodox ways, we remain impressed that one so young can so coolly pull off the impersonation. Beyond the religious testing, there are other threats to expose her, including that the village she fled is not so far away, and she runs the risk she might encounter someone who knows her.

The film also periodically reminds us of the deadly price the Nazis imposed on those who did shelter Jews. When another Jewish girl turns up at the farm, Sara tries to help without giving herself away, another reminder of the constant danger she is in.

There is much to admire about this film but not all is perfect. Some of the exposition is unclear, and we are not entirely certain what is happening between Sara and Pavlo, although he is clearly attracted to her. The film also has the characters speak in English when they are presumably speaking in Ukrainian but uses subtitles for other languages, a choice that some viewers might find awkward.

All in all, MY NAME IS SARA is a worthy drama, an impressive true story of surviving the Holocaust, by a teen girl on her own, forced to conceal her identity and live by her wits, told with a thriller vibe, and shot on location with fine cinematography and acting.

MY NAME IS SARA, in English and Polish, German and Russian with English subtitles, opens Friday, Aug. 19, at Marcus Des Peres Cinema and other theaters.