THE READER
ENTERTAINMENT
RELEASED 2 January 2009
It’s 1958, and scarlet fever-stricken German teenager Michael Berg (Michael Gross) is sick on the way home from school and a kind-hearted older lady called Hanna (Kate Winslet) helps him get home safely. Months later, Michael returns to Hannah’s home to thank her, and despite a big age gap, they begin a passionate and secretive affair.
Inbetween frequent bouts of sex (involving a very naked Winslet), Michael dicovers Hanna loves being read to, so he reads her many classics (such as ‘The Odyssey’ and ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’) until one day he arrives at her flat to discover it completely empty and no trace of Hannah.
Eight years later, with Michael studying to be a law student, Hannah enters his life once more in unexpected circumstances. The story continues up until 1995, with Michael’s (now played by Ralph Fiennes) life still involving Hannah.
Based on his award winning novel, author Bernhard Schlink describes his book as being about ‘the second generation’, the lucky late-born children of the post-war years, who grew up very naive until they realized what their parents had done. In Germany, the movement towards comprehending the war has it’s own term - vergangenheitsbewältigung, meaning ‘the struggle to come to terms with the past’. Writer Sir David Hare (The Hours) has teamed up again with director Stephen Daldry (The Hours, Billy Elliot) to bring this enlightening book to the screen.
It isn’t until halfway through the movie that you realise ‘The Reader’ isn’t just an unusual love story, but is also a movie that deals with the repercussions of the Holocaust. As well as the unexpected direction the movie takes, I was also surprised by how Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes only feature together in one scene. In fact, Ralph Fiennes doesn’t feature very much in the movie at all really, although he is very good in the important screentime he has. ‘The Reader’ is very much Kate Winslet’s movie, both in acting terms and story terms. Her character is a microcosm of what the term ‘vergangenheitsbewältigung’ is all about, and the young Michael (a very good German actor called Michael Gross playing the younger Ralph Fiennes role, and his first English-speaking role) is representative of Germany’s attempt to deal with their past.
I really loved ‘The Reader’. It’s slow-paced, but the characters are enthralling and the subject matter takes you places not visited before in a Hollywood movie. I found the final scenes to be deeply moving, and a great evocation of how someone can always hold a place in your heart, however long ago it may be or how times may change. ‘The Reader’ is a fascinating film that deals with blame, judgement, guilt, and love. It’s a simple story, but it’s the complicated questions that arise from such simple events that will have you thinking after the cinema lights have gone up.
FOUR OUT OF FIVE