As backstory, Barbara had written a short op-ed on "choice overload" for the Christian Science Monitor a few months before, noting what she'd noticed in her students, her kids, their friends and her friends' kids.

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The pleasures of "Barbara" flow from an urgency and complexity that are concealed, though only for a while, by Christian Petzold's spare style.

WSJ: History Spawns Peak Films at Telluride Film Festival | By Joe Morgenstern

CNN's Elise Labott, Jeanne Meserve, Carol Cratty, Richard Quest, Nic Robertson, Christian Purefoy, Tom Cohen, Mike Ahlers, Alona Rivord, Mohammed Jamjoom, Miguel Susana and Barbara Starr contributed to this report.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS