96 of 102 people found the following review helpful:
A deep, thought-provoking film. Unmissable.
The Reader is adapted from a novel of the same name by Bernhard Schlink (a novel I have not read, and one I must add to my ever growing reading list), whether it is a faithful adaptation, I cannot say. Regardless, the film has powerful messages and raises important moral questions which are incredibly difficult to answer.
12 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
Kate Earned Her Oscar - Despite the "Plot Holes"
First of all, Kate Winslet is outstanding in a very difficult and challenging role as Hannah whose affair with a teenage boy takes up the opening 45 minutes of this film. The sex scenes are graphic - which is not always necessary - but they set up the "Mrs Robinson" style of the relationship between the older woman and the boy who is, on a bicycle outing, mistaken for...
The Reader is adapted from a novel of the same name by Bernhard Schlink (a novel I have not read, and one I must add to my ever growing reading list), whether it is a faithful adaptation, I cannot say. Regardless, the film has powerful messages and raises important moral questions which are incredibly difficult to answer.
The basic plot is easy enough to lay out: it is 1950's Germany; a young boy of fifteen, Michael Berg (David Kross), is sick on the streets, when an older woman in her late thirties, Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), finds him and helps him home. After recovering from his illness, Michael goes back to thank Hannah in her home, and an affair begins. It lasts for one summer, and Hanna abruptly leaves without a word. Six years later, Michael, now a law student, comes across his former lover in a war trial, where Hanna is one of six female defendants - all of whom are former guards of the concentration camps. A secret, that Hanna deems so shameful that she would rather be found guilty of mass murder than disclose it, secures the tragedy of this highly emotive and moving film.
The film's narrative is told through flashbacks (though the narrative eventually catches up to the present time) from the older Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes) and although it was so many years ago, although it was only one summer in his youth, it becomes evident that he has never moved on and has affected his whole life.
The first warning I would give about this film is to not watch it with your parents or other relatives - the first hour of the film has very graphic sex scenes and includes full frontal male nudity. This part of the film is a bit slow going, and since I had not read a single thing about the film before I sat down (all I knew was that Winslet and Fiennes starred) I began to sigh and wonder if I had unwittingly walked into a softcore porn film. It becomes obvious later on why so much time is spent on the actual affair, so although it gets a bit tiresome, its effects come into play and makes the film a lot more satisfying in its full context.
It is the first time leap, six years after the affair, that the film really begins to pick up. The trial itself is the highlight of the film. It is superbly written and the performances are inspired. The seminars in which the students and their professor discuss the proceedings of the trial is particularly powerful.
There is not one weak performance in sight, and I could not honestly say who out-acted who out of the three leads. Winslet is always reliable, but her turn as Hanna renders her truly deserving of all the nominations (and wins) she has received. Kross depicts the innoncent love of a fifteen year old boy and the pain that ensues with deep authenticity. Fiennes does not get as much screen time, but he captures it everytime he appears, playing as full grown man but still with the sense of innocence and pained youth which he has never quite been able to get away from.
"What would you have done?" Hanna asks the silent stricken courtroom. The sense of human morality, alongside with contemporary and prior laws, authority driven behaviour, duty, obedience and different cultural beliefs are spun into one when the court asks Hanna why she did not unlock the doors to a burning church with hundreds of Jews inside. The certainty and the obviously matter of fact demeanor that Hannah inhabits on trial raises so many questions: who has the right to judge who? Should a court of a different time, of a different social context condemn actions of others made in the past? But in what circumstances should mass murder be left unpunished? Can anyone possibly understand a person like Hanna? Is it the case that somebody like Hanna who could love, who could feel, that a young boy fell in love with, could honestly have killed hundreds of Jews? Were all the guards not really sadists, criminals and cold-hearted, but normal, ordinary people? These are just some of the questions that this film asks, but cannot find answers to. I doubt the audience will be any closer of the answers.
It is these thought-provoking matters coupled with the human aspect of Michael Berg and how the holocaust affects the following generations that truly makes this film unique, inspiring and moving. This film is unmissable and whilst I imagine it will gain some critics by putting concentration camp guards in the position of sympathy, they may well miss the point that it is not so much about understanding Hanna, but following the journey of a boy who unwittingly fell in love with a former SS guard and trying to come to terms with it.
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We've all been waiting for Kate to find a role which would show her great talent as an actress. This is it.
An improbable story of a 30ish, lonely and conformist repressed woman, with some very bad memories, who falls in love with a teenage boy she wants to help, seems like a difficult project. But the script, acting and direction are faultless.
There are many genuinely tender moments as the 'star-crossed' lovers discover their bond and declare their love on a cycling holiday in the Alps. Hannah (Kate) is seen growing in confidence as she realises that she is truly cared for by Michael, however incongruous their age-mismatched affair.
But the affair is necessarily doomed when she is sent to trial for war crimes committed in her former life as a concentration camp guard. The other women guards in the dock are superbly, if rather frighteningly, well-played.
Hannah's honesty, in describing her sense of duty to the Reich and its apparatus is her fatal flaw. She is sentenced to a long jail term, while her far more venal colleagues are dealt with more lightly.
During her long incarceration she is traced by her old lover, now a mature man. In a beautiful switch, he now assumes the duty of caring for her, but now in a platonic relationship of book-exchange, as she gains in literacy.
This film is utterly superb. It charts the complexity of human love, personal redemption through affection and understanding and it shows how good actors have a skill few ordinary mortals possess.
This is not 'Holocaust chic' at any level. It is a series of moral dilemmas, beautifully resolved and skillfully told. It is set in 1950's moving to the present, but its themes are timeless.
Why am I recommending it, you probably already have a copy?
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Having read Bernard Schlink's thoughtful book, I wanted to see 'The Reader', and Kate Winslet's recent triumph at the Golden Globes just added to that. The film is very faithful to the book - only a couple of things are added (one, a visit made by Michael, the central character, as a law student to Auschwitz, a bit questionable, I think ; another, Michael's relationship with his daughter and how it is used in the film, a definite plus). This is the tale of a six-months affair between Michael, a 15-year-old Berliner, in 1958 and Hannah, a sensuous, probably lonely mid-thirties tram conductress, in her small rented flat, and the effect of that affair on the young man in older life. Hannah likes him to read to her, and he does - book after book. The physical side of their relationship is, for him, completely new, exciting and wonderful, and he does fall in love with her ; she also with him. Suddenly she leaves, for a reason which is clear in the book but not really in the film, and the next time he sees her she is in court, on trial for war crimes - she was a camp guard at Auschwitz. He attends the trial as a law student, with his peers and his professor, and her presence in the dock comes as a profound shock. For those who do not know the book I don't want to give away too much, but the trial, which is very absorbing, has a devastating effect on Michael - the moment when he becomes aware of Hannah in court is one of many very powerful moments in the film. Things are not quite as they seem, and he knows it. The book (and the film) follow their lives for another twenty years or so. He re-establishes contact of a kind with her and does things to help, but of course this relationship must remain hidden from everyone he knows, his closest family included, and so it continues to the end of the film, when at last he begins to unburden himself.
The film has great integrity. It is almost totally convincing, in its attention to detail, its tone and the performances of the central actors. Kate Winslet is absolutely marvellous, in a role which is hard-edged but much more sympathetic than you could imagine. It is a performance of great range, but it is never over the top, and some of her best moments are quiet ones, when she has little or nothing to say but conveys much by a look, a gesture, a way of walking even. You can see exactly why the boy would love her, but equally how she came to be a camp guard. The young German actor who plays Bernard, not an easy role at all, measures up well to it, as does Ralph Fiennes as his later self, the troubled lawyer. There is a good cameo from Bruno Ganz (ironically, the actor who was such a marvellous Hitler in 'Downfall') as the law professor. But, Winslet aside, it is the film overall which works, not any one performance in it. There are some wonderful moments - when Michael senses who is on trail, as I said, when Hannah makes a damaging courtroom admission, when she re-establishes contact with him in a way which is both surprising and entirely appropriate, and at the end (I won't be specific, because that would give too much away). All in all, it is an absorbing and sometimes very moving two hours or so, and just as the book does, it forces us to confront the question that Hannah asks the judge in court (beautifully voiced by Winslet, not as a moral challenge but simply as the thing that comes naturally to her mind at that moment - the obvious question) ; what would you have done?
P.S. (23rd. February 2009) - it's very nice to know now that Kate Winslet has won the Oscar for Best Actress to add to her Golden Globe and BAFTA awards - they seem very well justified.
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An amazing film, seeing it last night at the cinema I came out stunned and absolutely moved by the acting and story of the film.
Starting off as an affair with a boy of about 15/16 with an older woman who is a bus conductor moving along to beautiful scenes of the country and slowly building to its main core of the Nuremburg trails this is incredible. Especially brilliant was the walk through the concentration camp scene seeing all the discarded boots of the victims and the all too horrible shower set that brings a lump to your throat.
The film ends with a very what would you have done as another review said and you really will find it difficult to decide taking all into account.
This is the best film of this year if not the last 5.
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Fifteen year old Michael Berg meets 30-something Hanna Schmitz when he is ill and she helps him home. Months later he returns with flowers to say thank you and an affair begins. Their affair is very much on her terms and as well as the physical side of their relationship she likes him to read to her. This continues throughout the summer, then suddenly she is gone.
Michael comes across Hanna years later when as a law-student he attends a war-crimes trial to find her as one of the defendants on trial.
Spanning three decades, this is a compelling drama that is deeply moving and well worthy of the Oscar nominations it has received. Inspired acting from Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes and especially David Kross as the young Michael.
This movie contains full frontal nudity and the loves scenes between 15 year old Michael and the older Hanna may disturb some viewers. This movie is one of the best I've seem in a long time.
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It's not an easy thing to watch a woman in her 30s seduce a 15 year old boy. The sex scenes are relatively graphic in a timid, virginal sort of way, and there is a lot of nudity; some of which is male full frontal, so for anyone who is easily offended, this probably isn't for you.
Kate Winslet is good in this. I don't like saying that because, grump, I don't like her much. But within 5 minutes you actually forget that's who she is. She plays Hanna Schmitz, a tough ole bird who works on the trams, and is arrested for her role at Auschwitz extermination camp. Young Michael (played by newcomer David Kross who is a revelation) loves her with the innocence and ardour of a 15 year old boy... but it's a love that lasts in some form for over 40 years.
Their lives go in very different directions, but the Summer they spent together binds them together for life.
It's beautifully filmed, of course. Scenes of sitting by a lake is quintessentially 50s, as are the lovely sunshine scenes of cycling through the countryside. It flickers between then and 1995, highlighting how profoundly the world has changed. The Reader is one of 3 current blockbuster films that deal with the holocaust; the others being Defiance and The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas and, truth be told, this isn't the best of the 3. Defiance wears that particular, questionable crown.
This is still a wonderful film, though, and it does leave you with questions, although perhaps not the ones intended. Where we're supposed to question whether we would have done what she did (a resounding no... could you have a hand in the mass suffering and murder of innocent people?) I was more left with the question of whether a good person can; whether someone need be inherently evil, and whether it would be possible to love someone who had been involved in something so full of horror. Am no closer to finding any answers.
Winslet will probably win the Oscar, and it's probably deserved. But young David Kross is the star, portraying a mixture of guilt, innocence, and the subsequent loss of it, beautifully.
Not an easy film to watch, for several reasons (as previously mentioned by another reviewer, the scene where he walks past the discarded boots of the murdered Jews is one of the more shocking I've ever seen), but one that comes highly recommended. If, however, you can only handle exposing yourself to one film about something so painful, watch Defiance. It may not be as "Hollywood", and it doesn't have any sex scenes, but it's a true story and those people deserve to have us know what they *actually* went through, and what they *actually* did. I can't help but think we owe them that.
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The Reader is a haunting and compelling film directed by Stephen Daldry based on the novel by Bernhard Schlink. From the first opening sequences you are immediately drawn in the life of the two protagonists Hanna and Michael played by Kate Winslet and David Kross.
It is clear from the opening shots that Michael is unwell the young schoolboy returns to thank the tram conductor who helped him outside her house. An unlikely relationship develops between the two and Michael accepts it without questioning it to deeply.
I would definitely recommend getting the book as there are some nice scenes which have been omitted in the film which make more of Hanna's problems-[I don't want to give anything away this concerns the time she checks into a hotel and Michael leaves her a note.] Also in the film Hanna doesn't follow Michael to look at him one last time before leaving. In the book there is a real sense of tension leading up to this point. In the film there is a slight nuance at the end where Michael confronts Hanna about her guilt and whether she has learnt anything; in the novel Hanna comes to this epiphany herself by ordering books on the subject from the library. Certainly it is clear from the novel how Hanna has cast a big shadow over Michael's life so that he is portrayed as a victim himself failed marriage with a daughter he doesn't see very often and unable to sustain a meaningful relationship.
Beautiful,evocative,sad and compelling no wonder Kate Winslet swept up all the awards for the film supported with sublime performances from Fiennes and David Kross.
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The Reader is a thought provoking and touching film that stays with you long after you have left the cinema.
Kate Winslet is superb as the older Hanna Schmitz, who beguils young Michael Berg after she befriends him when he is ill outside her apartment. Although they do not see each other again for some time following his illness he never forgets her, and returns to thank her for her kindness upon his recovery. They continue their friendship, which turns in to an affair. During their affair Hanna ultimately turns the young immature and inexperienced Michael from a boy into a young man. Whilst he opens Hannas mind to the world by reading classics to her. There is a real connection between them, however, this ends abruptly by her sudden disappearance. It is only years later that he rediscovers her, only to learn a horrifying secret (one I do not wish to spoil if you have yet to see the film).
This films works for so many reasons, but in particular the performances. As mentioned already Kate Winslet is superb, but she is equally matched by David Kross as the young Michael, whose transition from boy to man is effortless. A truly must see film.
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This is such an interesting film in so many ways. It is difficult to envisage how a film dealing with such a shocking subject, with some graphic sex scenes and with the harsh realities of post war Germany as its backdrop could ever be described as subtle, how a character so linked to the evils of Naziism could ever provoke sympathy and how much this unusual mix makes for enjoyment. Yet the film is subtle, Hanna Schmidt does provoke sympathy and whilst fantastic yet harrowing Nazi/Jewish films like Schindler's List or The Pianist could hardly be described as 'enjoyable' this film strangely is.
That it is subtle and enjoyable is down to the mix of director, cinematography and performances by the lead actors, all of whom Winslet especially, are first class. The film is beautifully shot and extremely well directed. The study into Germany in the 50s is quite brilliant as the nation struggled to both confront and forget its past. Hanna Schmidt is the very embodiment of this juxtaposition and Winslet comes of age as an actor in this film and she manages to pull off such a challenging role with much credit.
This is quite simply a story which deserves to be told, a strange mix of beauty and latent horror and as an audience, we are all the richer for its telling.
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The Reader, adapted from the novel by Bernhard Schlink is one of the most powerful and thought provoking films that I can ever remember seeing. It poses questions both in it's story and in the discussions among the law students that have been taboo for the past seventy years. While never attempting to make an excuse for the attrocities committed in the concentration camps it does ask whether the right people were punished afterwards or whether it was more a case of finding anybody to shift the blame to.
Kate Winslett was rightly rewarded for her portrayal of Hanna, a former prison camp guard who through her pride takes the brunt of the blame for a massacre. Ralph Fiennes gives another sad and splendid performance as her former lover.
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