I saw "Sarah's Key" over the weekend -- the movie adapted from Tatiana de Rosnay's popular novel -- and came away moved and exhausted.

The intersecting story lines flip between a modern-day journalist's research into the deportation of Jews from Paris during World War II, and the actual round-up and imprisonment. The scenes are gripping without being bloody, and startling in the way lives were suddenly turned upside down by the French government's collaboration with the Nazis. It's a well-told story about personal and mass tragedy.

I hadn't read the book, but my wife and her friend, Debbie, who also watched the movie, vouched for the adaptation. I'm amazed that all of the action could be crammed into a 300-page book. And the on-screen movement back and forth between the 1940's and the present (with a couple of stops in between) was not too jarring.

This isn't typical summertime fun. But if you don't mind a wrenching emotional experience, check it out.