Fresh
Barbara Sukowa delivers a beautifully modulated performance, showing the rigor of Arendt's thought and convictions while revealing the contours of a passionate woman with complex relationships.
Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader
Hannah Arendt
Her ideas changed the world
2012 · 1h 53m · Not Rated
Drama
Directed by
Margarethe von Trotta
Overview
A portrait of the genius that shook the world with her discovery of “the banality of evil.” After she attends the Nazi Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem, Arendt dares to write about the Holocaust in terms no one has ever heard before. Her work instantly provokes a furious scandal, and Arendt stands strong as she is attacked by friends and foes alike. But as the German-Jewish émigré also struggles to suppress her own painful associations with the past, the film exposes her beguiling blend of arrogance and vulnerability — revealing a soul defined and derailed by exile.
Director and cast
- Margarethe von Trotta Director
- Barbara Sukowa as Hannah Arendt
- Axel Milberg as Heinrich Blücher
- Janet McTeer as Mary McCarthy
- Julia Jentsch as Lotte Köhler
- Nicholas Woodeson as William Shawn
- Ulrich Noethen as Hans Jonas
- Leila Schaus as Laureen
- Claire Johnston as Ms Serkin
- Michael Degen as Kurt Blumenfeld
- Friederike Becht as Young Hannah Arendt
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
86%
Tomatometer
Fresh
[Barbara Sukowa] invests Arendt with a steely fury, but the film, set during and after the 1961 trial of ex--Nazi official Adolf Eichmann, has an entertaining cocktail-banter superficiality.
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
Fresh
Like A Hidden Method, David Cronenberg's drama about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, Hannah Arendt takes seriously the life of the mind.
Bill Stamets, Chicago Sun-Times
Fresh
In an era of sleepwalking surrender, "Hannah Arendt" is a welcome wake-up call, a ringing reminder that warring forces first assemble on the battlefield of conscience.
Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Fresh
Balanced portrayal, makes a persuasive case that Arendt was a valuable voice, whose dedicated work in trying to unravel the causes of Europe's moral collapse was worthy of study and consideration.
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
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