With ‘Sophie Scholl: The Final Days,” it is inevitable that from reading the title, one will have already discovered the film’s ending. What truly matters in the case of this scenario is how the film gets you to this ending without ever losing the suspense of what occurred prior to the ending. The movie is great at keeping its suspense high despite the viewer’s knowledge of its outcome. It recreates many of its scenes, much like Ron Howard accomplished in 1995’s “Apollo 13.”
The movie, based on actual events, takes place during the first week of February in 1943. Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party rule Germany while continuing to wage war against Europe, much to the dismay of a group of German college students who call themselves the “White Rose.” The group, dedicated to the downfall of the Third Reich, creates pamphlets filled with propaganda against the Nazi party in hopes of affecting the way in which their fellow classmates view the war machine.
During the top-secret mission of distributing these pamphlets, Sophie Scholl, the only female member of the group, and her brother, are caught and quickly detained by the Gestapo.
The events that follow are gripping and all too real, as most of the film’s screenplay is based upon actual transcripts that the Gestapo kept from Scholl’s interrogation and trial. Despite this, it not once feels as though we are watching a reenactment or a duplication of the events; it is as though we are watching what really went down between Scholl and her main interrogator, Robert Mohr.
Julia Jentsch portrays Scholl so well that it is easy to tell what the character is thinking even without her expressing it. Every time Scholl must create an alibi to defend her actions, it is like watching a craftsman putting together a complicated piece of work with relative ease. But Scholl wasn’t a craftsman, and this is likely why it is so liberating and enjoyable to watch her outwit her German interrogators.
The questions and responses go back and forth like a rapid fire shooting gallery, which makes it hard not to get caught up in Scholl essentially beating Mohr. The chemistry between Jenstch and Alexander Held, who plays Mohr, is far above any that could be achieved by two actors whose names are recognizable. As Scholl wins the legal battle, it is visibly seen that Mohr begins to gain respect for Scholl, and that the two may have even gotten along greatly had the circumstances for their meeting been different.
Unfortunately for Scholl, Mohr and the viewer, the circumstances weren’t different, and history cannot be changed. Scholl may end up winning our hearts and earning respect from her captors, but ultimately it is neither us nor Mohr who is able to determine what is to become of Sophie Scholl. That is for the Nazi courts to decide, and needless to say, their appeals system is nonexistent.
What isn’t important about the film is its outcome, but the message that it leaves behind. It is hard to find a story that ends with a happy ending when you discuss the Holocaust and Nazi rule in Germany. But what can inevitably happen from these situations is that the events that occur prior to the not-so-uplifting ending can offer a greater message and meaning than had they gone a different way. “Sophie Scholl: The Final Days” is that type of a story. It is the type of story that everyone should get their hands on at some point in their life.
