Movie Review: The Reader

The Reader (2008)

Directed by Stephen Daldry

Written by David Hare

Starring Kate Winslet, David Kross, Ralph Fiennes, Bruno Ganz, Lena Olin

Release Date December 12th, 2008

Published Decemebr 11th, 2008 

The first 45 minutes, give or take, of The Reader starring Kate Winslet and newcomer David Kross, are some of the more bizarre minutes in any movie this year. These awkward, sexy, meandering scenes offer some of the more uncomfortable laughs I have had at any movie this year aside from Sex Drive. My mention of a teen sex comedy in relation to what is essentially a holocaust movie should give you the impression of just how uneasy I was feeling during these early scenes. 

David Kross plays Michael Berg, a teenager in 1950's Berlin who gets very ill walking home from school. A tram worker, Hannah (Kate Winslet) with a rather severe sensibility, kindly walks him home. He returns to her building later to thank her for caring for him. It begins an entirely uncommon affair that will shape the rest of Michael's life. Director Stephen Daldry, I'm sure, wishes to exploit the clumsy sexuality of a 15 year old, not an uncommon topic in movie. 

Here however, the fumbling earns laughs in the strangest most uncomfortable ways, including showing young Michael bared completely before his new love and us. Don't worry, actor Kross is over 18. Admittedly, that fact is not all that comforting. Maybe the bigger sin of these early scenes is the fact that Hannah's motivations for getting involved with the young man she simply calls Kid, are entirely unclear. One moment she is demanding a favor, the next minute she is nude, he is nude, and a stilted lesson in sex is underway.

Then, one day, Hannah is gone. She has cleared out of their little love nest and Michael is devastated. Cut to several years later, Michael is at law school. His professor, Rohl (Bruno Ganz) a Jew who survived the death camps takes Michael and several other promising students to a trial where people who worked in the Nazi death camps are on trial. The defendants are women who worked as guards at Auschwitz. It should be no logical leap for you, my friends, to figure out that Hannah is one of those on trial. Michael says nothing. Then, Hannah tells a damning lie that Michael knows he can refute.

I will leave you to discover Michael's choice and the consequences. After a weird start, with heavy, R-rated sex, The Reader slowly becomes a gut wrenching drama. Ralph Fiennes becomes the elder Michael and his relationship to Hannah in the years after the trial is touching and sad. The film dances precariously close to being meaningless. So much of the drama is internal and requires the actors to really sell it. Thankfully, Winslet and Fiennes are tremendous salesmen. Two of our finest actors draw us close to these actors and even in the strangest of contexts make The Reader a very moving emotional experience.

Several minutes into The Reader I was ready to pan it. By the end, Kate Winslet had revealed so much of herself, and Ralph Fiennes had shown such stunning sensitivity, I was completely turned around. Never underestimate the power of actors. Their ability to fix even the most troubling of internal drama is mind-blowing. The Reader is awkward and discomfiting; with scenes of a sexual nature that will put off many more skittish audience members. It's also a heart rending, human drama featuring fine performances from Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes for whom I say, the movie is a must see.