Directed by Carol Reed
My rating: 3.5 stars out of 4
The key to understanding "The Key", I think, is revealed more than halfway through the film by Sophia Loren: she is listed as dead when applying to help with the war effort, killed in an air raid. She has frequent premonitions: a bottle of wine splattered on a shirt soaking it through like blood, and the burning photo of a boat on a newspaper page. So does she exist? The ending, especially, is ambiguous. She leaves the train station in a cloud of steam, as if exiting a dream, while William Holden declares that he will find her in London, somehow. Even Loren's performance is ghost-like, as if sleepwalking through the role. I believe that is on purpose. In wartime a normal life is impossible, death a constant companion.
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