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The Reader

The Reader (2008)

December. 10,2008
|
7.6
|
R
| Drama Romance

The story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a teenager in the late 1950s, had an affair with an older woman, Hanna, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. He alone realizes that Hanna is illiterate and may be concealing that fact at the expense of her freedom.

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merelyaninnuendo
2008/12/10

The ReaderThe innocence and the selfless act behind it is the key and the makers were aware of it and narrows it down to it and brings out the best from the book gaining passion, attention and love from the viewers. Stephen Daldry despite of possessing such a beautiful script fails to project it on screen convincingly which makes the audience switch seats on picking a side, for the writing and adaptation is equally powerful on the other side. As these features require, the performance is not compromised on any level by Kate Winslet; she is brilliant, and also Ralph Fiennes from the supporting cast. The Reader has a powerful yet beautiful concept as we all are aware, but also the adaptation and the editing which provides enough space and range to the characters and the actors to flaunt themselves but what's indigestible is the execution and it doesn't pay well in the end.

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Raj Doctor
2008/12/11

The story is based in post World War 2 Germany, shown inter-linked in three parts:First part, where a teenage boy Michael Berg (David Kross) falls in LOVE with a young working girl Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winstel) who is double his age. Second, where the boy Michael is a young graduate lawyer and is attending a court seminar where Hanna Schmitz is accused of being a complicit guard at a Nazi prison where 300 people are murdered.Third, where Michael (Ralph Finess) a well established lawyer secretly supports Hanna's 20 year prison sentence and after release when she commits suicide, he fulfills her wish.The first and third part are the most engrossing and entertaining where romance between these two protagonist brims every frame.The main spine of the movie is Hanna's illiteracy that she is ashamed of. During part one - Hanna insist that Michael reads out all story books and novels to her before having sex with her. During part two - Hanna's secretive about her illiteracy during court proceedings lands her in a life-time sentence compared to her other co-guards who only get 2-3 years of jail sentence.In part three - the part one romance of story reading is recreated again when Hanna is in prison - and Michael sends her audio tapes of all the books he had read to her. Through these tapes Hanna learns to read and writes to the extend that she can form a small sentence and send it to Michael. Those scenes are exceptionally executed with tenderness and LOVE. Even a three word sentence of Hanna written to Michael brings tears to our eyes.Michael is shown torn between hating Nazi criminal and his romantic love interest - Hanna. The last scene of Michael and Hanna meeting each other after almost 40 years face to face is extremely heart-breaking. Without saying much Kate personifies her LOVE by screaming through her eyes, body language and hidden emotions that she wants to be with her LOVER Michael who is unwilling to help her beyond a point. This realization leads Hanna to commit suicide.Hanna's character screams at us as audiences for empathy and sympathy and all credit to the master-class performance of Kate Winstel for it - incredibly portrays an Oscar winning role.Apart from these two main characters - other roles are passe. The movie is adapted from the novel by the same name written by Bernhard Schlick who is himself a lawyer and author. The Direction by Stephen Daldry is excellent.A must watchOverall my rating for the movie is 7.5 out of 10.

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FilmBuff1994
2008/12/12

The Reader is a decent movie with an average plot and a stellar cast. I certainly had no issues with the actors, as a matter of fact, I could not help but sometimes feel that they were too good for this movie, as the amount of raw emotion Kate Winslet puts in to this Oscar winning performances is stunning for a film that gives her so little to work with. It is also a pleasure, as always, to watch Ralph Fiennes perform. The characters are all unlikeable, none of them really having any likability to them, they do not have definable traits. Michael Berg is the main character that guides this story, but there is not a single thing about this two dimensional being. He is established at the beginning as a man who had an affair, and there is not much scope put in to him beyond that, making it almost impossible to evoke any sort of compassion for his character, and even Hanna never truly grabbed me. The film also paints the Holocaust in a very strange light. While it is not idolising it in any way, it does not create an image of how horrendous these events were either. The director seemed to try his best to shed some light on these events, which just makes it unsettling, as we all know there is no positive outcome. Well acted, but nothing more. Poor characters and a disengaging story, I expected so much more from the Reader and was inevitably let down, I would advise giving it a miss. A man reminisces on his affair with a woman who has a much darker secret. Best Performance: Kate Winslet

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Lee Eisenberg
2008/12/13

While taking a German course in undergrad, I read Bernhard Schlink's 1995 novel "Der Vorleser" (which more accurately translates to "the narrator"). I naturally thought that it would make an interesting movie. Sure enough, they eventually made one. It took me several years before I got around to seeing it, but now I have.The main gist of "The Reader" centers on the complexity of Hanna Schmitz as a person, but also on responsibility for one's actions. Hanna might have been merely a cog in the machine, but that doesn't excuse her deeds. Indeed, part of the purpose of writing the novel was so that Germany could collectively accept responsibility for its actions.Kate Winslet (who won a well deserved Oscar for the decidedly unglamorous role) portrays Hanna as a tragic figure, someone who might have not fully understood what she was doing but probably should have, and so she did eventually have to face the consequences. In the end, it doesn't matter whether or not Hanna understood what she was doing; she still made the choice to do it.Ralph Fiennes plays Hanna's paramour as an adult, doing what he can for her (while knowing full well what she did). Nonetheless, the movie belongs to Winslet. This is another masterpiece from Stephen Daldry, also the director of "Billy Elliot", "The Hours", and "Trash" (about some boys in Brazil's slums).

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