In February 1943 at Munich University, two members of the non-violent student organization White Rose – Sophie Scholl (Julia Jentsch) and her brother Hans (Fabian Hinrich) – help mimeograph a leaflet critical of Germany’s path to war. They realize they’ve copied more material than they can mail, so Hans suggests leaving the leftovers on campus during class, when no one will see who left them.

21-year-old Sophie volunteers to assist, explaining that a woman is less likely to attract attention. They stack leaflets outside the classrooms of the main building on campus, but Sophie tells Hans she still has some left. She ventures to the third floor, places a stack of leaflets on the balustrade and as students spill into the halls, pushes them over the edge.

A janitor who saw Sophie summons the police, who quickly detain the brother and sister. Despite a solid alibi claiming that they had nothing to do with the leaflets, Gestapo investigator Robert Mohr (Alexander Held) transfers them to Munich Stradelheim Prison for interrogation.

Sophie calmly explains to Mohr that she pushed the leaflets off as a prank, and was carrying an empty suitcase with her because she planned to travel to Ulm and bring back some clothes. Mohr is skeptical that she would leave town in the middle of the week, with a suitcase that perfectly fits the leaflets, but she convinces him that she’s apolitical.

Mohr is ready to sign Sophie’s release, but the Gestapo find evidence in the Scholls’ dormitory linking them to the leaflets. Sophie confesses and says she’s proud of what she did. Mohr – who supports the law and order that funded her education – urges Sophie to work with him and name the others in her organization.

Sophie explains that she’s seen mentally unstable children taken away to be euthanized, and soldiers returning from the front have told her about Jewish extermination camps. When Mohr tells her that some lives are unworthy, Sophie responds that final judgments like that are not for us to make. She refuses to name accomplices. Hastily tried of high treason in court with Hans, and Christoph Probst (Florian Stetter), all are sentenced to be executed that day.

Directed by Marc Rothemund and written by Fred Breinersdorfer, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days was an Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Film in 2005. It’s a solid docudrama. The performances are all terrific; Julia Jentsch and Alexander Held in particular should be getting a lot of offers for work outside Germany after this film.

Prior to seeing this, I was unaware of any organization within Germany that opposed the Nazis. I liked the exchanges between Scholl and Mohr; rarely in film do you get to see protracted interrogations like this, where a carefully constructed alibi is methodically unwoven by authorities, and one political ideology battles another. Sophie Scholl also has a lot to say about the conviction of change and how that can empower people to face death with nobility.

The story is much more profound than anything that’s really put on screen. Rothemund is a TV director and shows it, with film that feels more suitable for the History Channel. The script is intelligent, but it moves by too quickly, giving us no more of an idea about who the Scholls were, other than what a history text might state. I also wanted a better impression of what life was like during wartime in Germany, which the film only hints at.

Still, I’m glad I saw this and would definitely recommend it to students of history.