Synopsis

Michael Berg is a professionally successful but personally unhappy lawyer in modern Germany. When he was 15 years old, he had a brief affair with a 36 year old woman (Hanna Schmitz) who'd liked to hear him read aloud. Later in life, Michael found out that the Hanna had once been a Nazi SS camp guard. The long-term effects of their affair and the secrets that they share are the focus of the film.

Pros:

• Kate Winslet is outstanding.


• The pacing, story, direction and performances are all top-knotch.

Cons:

• I can't think of any. I thought this film was a complete success.

Generally:

5 on a 1 to 5 scale. One of the very best movies I've seen in a long time.

Extended Review:

Very few films try to say something serious about human beings and the things that bind us to one and other. Most of the ones that do try end up failing. I suppose it's hard to sustain genuine emotional intensity in a film without stumbling into melodrama or unintentional parody.

The Reader is one of those rare films that tries to convey something meaningful and manages to actually do so without collapsing under the weight of it's own ideas. This movie walks a very fine line. Any film dedicated to this subject matter could have become unintentionally silly, falsely sentimental, self-important or just plain insulting. The Reader never stumbles. This is a fine, strong film and I recommend it enthusiastically to mature viewers who're in the mood for something demanding.

Kate Winslet has been nominated for a number of awards for her work here, and she deserves to win them. Winslet has turned in good performances in movies as divergent as Heavenly Creatures and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, but she's never been as strong as she is here. It's really a demanding role; she has to play a statutory rapist and former concentration camp guard and make it possible for an audience to feel some empathy for her character. It's remarkable that Winslet pulled it off. Finding humanity in a character like that and actually making that humanity palpable isn't the kind of thing I typically buy into. The very idea seems too uncomfortably close to a kind of moral relativism for me. It is to Kate Winslet's tremendous credit that I found her performance compelling, believable, and, yes, human.

A few thoughts on that subject; the idea of feeling empathy for a Nazi: There are people who feel understandable outrage about the idea of a film with a sympathetic central character who is a former SS guard. But I never got the impression that The Reader intended to send a message as simple and repugnant as "Nazi's are people, too." The movie never asks the viewer to shed tears for Hanna Schmitz. Instead, this movie seems to want the audience to consider important questions. Is it possible, for instance, to do something genuinely awful without even really thinking about your actions? How often do any of us stop to really examine our own moral imperatives? Most provocatively, the movie poses this question: If you possess information that might generate sympathy for someone who is clearly guilty of horrible crimes, are you morally bound to reveal that information?

I like that this movie neither attempts to offer simple answers to those questions, nor seems to posit that the questions are unanswerable.

The Reader seems to want it's audience to genuinely consider those issues, and I think it's possible that some worthwhile conversation and debate might be generated in the process. Even so, none of that is what really impresses me about this film. What impresses me about this movie is how smart and honest it is about the negative things that can play roles in the forming of our lifetime bonds. Things like forgiveness or the unwillingness to offer forgiveness. Things like desperation and anger. Things like the commitments we might make more out of shame than love.

And yet the movie finds it's way to a genuinely positive ending. The Reader is a movie about secrets, shame and guilt. But it never glamorizes those things. Instead, the movie ends with a message about the importance of avoiding a life shrouded in secret. So, yes, the end of this movie is positive, but it isn't false or sentimental. Maybe love doesn't conquer all, The Reader seems to say ... but love is the only thing that enables any of us to ever conquer anything.

Trailer

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies