Movie Review: THE READER

“It doesn’t matter what I think. It doesn’t matter what I feel. The dead are still dead.”

Nominated for 5 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Stephen Daldry), Best Adapted Screenplay (David Hare), Best Cinematography (Roger Deakins) and Best Leading Actress (Kate Winslet) and 5 BAFTAs in the same categories, as well as 4 Golden Globe Nominations with a win and a SAG Award for Kate Winslet as Best Actress in a Supporting Role - work that one out - there is little doubt that The Reader is one of the finest films of the year. Its pedigree is of the highest and marks yet another successful collaboration between director Stephen Daldry and writer/playwright David Hare (The Hours), and is dedicated to its two producers Anthony Minghella and Sidney Pollack, who tragically died before the picture was completed.

David Hare’s screen adaptation of Bernhard Schlink’s hugely successful 1995 novel “Der Vorleser”, translated into more than 40 languages and the very first German language novel ever to reach the top of the New York Times bestseller list, is a powerful story of post-war Germany: of guilt, remorse, accountability and the effects of the Holocaust on the next generation.

Opening in Germany in 1958, The Reader tells of 15 year old Michael Berg (played by 18 year old David Kross) who is suddenly struck down with scarlet fever on his way home from school one day. Collapsing in an apartment block courtyard, he is taken in and helped home by one of the tenants, Hanna, a woman twice his age. After his recovery months later, he seeks her out to thank her and, in very short order, she has seduced him. Thus begins a torrid, clandestine, summer-long affair. Michael can hardly wait to leave school every day and leap into bed with Hanna. But their relationship takes on an added dimension. One day, she urges him to read one of his books aloud and it gives her such obvious pleasure that it soon becomes a bedtime ritual. Before very long he is reading her everything from “The Lady with the Little Dog” to “The Odyssey” and “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and the bond between them deepens. Then, as suddenly as it began, it is over. Michael visits Hanna to find that she has moved out and disappeared without a trace. He is heartbroken.

Eight years go by: Michael grows up, moves on and is attending law school in Heidelberg. His professor (Bruno Ganz) sends him to a trial of Nazi war criminals as an observer and suddenly there she is again: Hanna is one of the defendants. As her past unfolds in the courtroom, Michael discovers a dark secret that will affect them both for the rest of their lives - and would even buy Hanna her freedom, should she choose to reveal it.

Although young David Kross and Ralph Fiennes, who plays the adult Michael Berg, successful lawyer narrating events in flashback from the distance of 1995, both put in convincing performances, this is without doubt Kate Winslet’s film. She lights up the screen whenever she appears. Passionate yet vulnerable, her emotional depth and dramatic impact - especially in the courtroom scenes - are truly astonishing, despite the fact that she says very little. Desperate, conflicted, broken, courageous - everything can be read in her face. It is from this point that the motion picture gathers strength and focus, as The Reader and its characters deal with shame, repentance, accountability and acceptance. It is about “communicating while failing to communicate”, and how a generation comes to terms with the deeds of its forebears.

At a press conference held in Berlin prior to the film’s festival screening on February 6, novelist Bernhard Schlink expressed satisfaction with the screen adaptation of his work and, when asked whether his book was autobiographical, said, “Every book is autobiographical. So is this.” This, of course, left us all speculating.

THE READER (US/Germany 2008); Genre: drama; US distributor: The Weinstein Co.; US release date: Dec. 10, 2008 (limited); Jan. 9, 2009 (wide); German distributor: Senator Films; German release date: Feb. 26, 2009; Director: Stephen Daldry; Writer/screenplay: David Hare, based on the novel “Der Vorleser” by Bernhard Schlink; Main cast: Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, David Kross, Bruno Ganz; Cinematographers: Roger Deakins, Chris Menges; Composer: Nico Muhly; Production designer: Brigitte Broch; Editor: Claire Simpson.