Synopsis
HANNAH ARENDT is 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.
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Cast
- Barbara SukowaHannah Arendt
- Axel MilbergHeinrich Blücher
- Janet McTeerMary McCarthy
- Julia JentschLotte Köhler
- Nicholas WoodesonWilliam Shawn
- Ulrich NoethenHans Jonas
- Leila SchausLaureen
- Claire JohnstonMs Serkin
- Michael DegenKurt Blumenfeld
- Friederike BechtYoung Hannah Arendt
Recommendations
- 100
The New York Times
Hannah Arendt conveys the glamour, charisma and difficulty of a certain kind of German thought.... The movie turns ideas into the best kind of entertainment. - 80
The Hollywood Reporter
Von Trotta seems to borrow some of her subject’s haughty disdain for compromise in a serviceable script that does the job of telling us who Hannah Arendt was like a good pair of solid, gray walking shoes; there’s nothing fancy or modern to distract from the portrait of one of the most important thinkers of the century. - 80
Village Voice
The writer-philosopher Hannah Arendt is brought to life by a mesmerizing Barbara Sukowa in Margarethe von Trotta's film. - 80
Salon
Talky but fascinating period drama. - 75
Portland Oregonian
A watchable, even suspenseful portrait of a woman who spends most of the film smoking cigarettes, sitting at typewriters or sparring at dinner parties. - 75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
En route, despite some clumsy exposition and the reduction of heavyweights like Mary McCarthy and William Shawn to fifth-business caricatures, the film does manage one impressive intellectual achievement of its own: rescuing that “banality of evil” phrase from the banal cliché it’s become and, by providing the full and daring context, giving it real meaning again. - 67
The A.V. Club
Opting to leave somewhat open the question of whether its subject was a traitor to her Jewish people or a conscientious scholar determined to conduct rational analysis free of public and peer pressure, it remains a mildly intriguing drama of the often unavoidable and contentious intersection of intellectual analysis and personal prejudices. - 63
Slant Magazine
The film's most striking quality, and it's not insignificant, is director Margarethe von Trotta's refusal to fossilize the controversies she dramatizes.
