The Reader
It’s rather melancholy to read the names of producers Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack at the end of “The Reader.” Both Oscar-winning directors passed away in the past year, meaning neither could enjoy the critical success Stephen Daldry’s film would be greeted with. Watching the film, one wonders whether either one was attached to direct at one point- the story seems right up their ally.
Coming in late in the game with duel Oscar contenders (the other being “Revolutionary Road”), Kate Winslet is shaking up the Best Actress race as only she can. Here, she’s equal-parts fetching, erotic, and dangerous as Hanna Schmitz, a German woman who, through happenstance, meets 15-year old Michael Berg (rebelliously and hauntingly played by David Kross) as he’s walking home one day. The two begin an affair, which gets into the routine of him reading to her before they make love. This continues for a summer that’ll profoundly effect both lives down the road.
Several years later, Michael is now a law student. As part of his studies, he’s watching with his professor and several other students the trial of six Nazi guards accused of being responsible for over 300 deaths at the concentration camps. Much to his surprise, Hanna is one of the guards.
But how much was she responsible for? And what is she hiding? The answers are as surprising as the way this story- adapted from the novel by Bernhard Schlink- unfolds, with Ralph Fiennes reserved and sympathetic as the older Michael, who finds a way through his uncertainty and begins corresponding with Hanna while she’s in prison. The “Hours” pairing of Daldry and screenwriter David Hare is potent and up to asking the difficult emotional and moral questions the film doesn’t have all of the answers for. But the film belongs to Winslet and Fiennes, each of whom has treaded these dicey waves before (see “Schindler’s List,” “The Constant Gardener,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” and “Little Children”), but as with before, the answers they find aren’t always right in front of them.
