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Home Subscribe About Us Features News Album Reviews Movie Reviews Past Movies Movie Resources Concert Reviews Book Reviews Top 10 Contact Us	The Reader Stars: Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes and David Kross Director: Stephen Daldry Scriptwriter: David Hare from the novel by Bernard Schlink Composer: Nico Muhly Cinematography: Roger Deakins and Chris Menges Weinstein/Mirage Enterprises Rating: R for sexual situations and nudity Running Length: 123 minutes The Reader is a story of the Holocaust told in a different way. It centers on illiteracy and how thinking this is shameful and concealing it, can color one’s life and the lives of those around them. It is unusual how the mind works and what some people think of as a definite handicap, some think of as only an obstacle and quickly move to overcome it. Bernhard Schlink’s 1995 novel tells the story of an older woman, Hanna (Kate Winslet) who meets and has an affair with a fifteen-year-old boy, Michael (David Kross.) The how’s and why’s make for an unusual love situation. In the credits, you will see the names of producers Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack, both of whom are now deceased. Photography is well done, and it is no wonder, with not one, but two top-notch cinematographers listed Roger Deakins and Chris Menges. This is a rare treat. It is Berlin, 1958, Michael is bored at school and a nodding acquaintance with the woman conductor on his Berlin train. When he is ill and takes refuge in an alley, he meets the woman, who takes him to her small apartment to wash up before he goes home. Telling his parents later, they suggest he bring flowers as a “thank you.” Hanna, the conductor, is sometimes gruff in speech, and sometimes changeable in personality, but they become friends and then lovers. Michael skips school and spends time in a love affair. A amusing scene is when Michael is having dinner with his parents, but his thoughts are of sex with Hanna. Months pass, and suddenly Hanna is gone. The audience begins to suspect why, but Michael is at a loss. Years go by, and Michael doesn’t have solid woman relationships. He always thinks of Hanna. He is now in college and goes with his class to attend a war trial for Nazi criminals. To his surprise---and in a wonderfully filmed scene---he recognizes Hanna’s voice as one of the criminals on trial and eventually, hears her confess. She was a guard at a Nazi prison camp during WWII. We can see why it was easier for her to confess than to defend herself against unfair charges by her co-defendants. Michael now knows the truth. Hanna can’t read or write and it is so shameful for her, she would rather go to prison than admit it. Michael is in his mid-twenties and Hanna is 47, but he still loves her. This is about when Ralph Fiennes enters the film as an adult Michael and parts of his story are told in flashback. “The Reader” does not give us the history of Hanna and why she did not learn to read. We do see that she chose work through the years where she followed verbal orders. There certainly is intelligence here, but a shame that covers it, also. Michael’s early relationship is shameful to him, too, he can’t tell anyone of his involvement with an older woman, and when he finally marries, he fathers a daughter, but the marriage ends in divorce. Hanna is still in prison. The acting in The Reader is well done, but be aware, there is nudity here. The actor's body language is wonderful. Kate is constantly wary as if afraid to be discovered, while the younger Michael (Kross) is eager and anticipatory. Fiennes, the older Michael, is battle-weary. He clearly has lost his purpose in life. Michael as played by David Kross is a young man in love who doesn’t know the ramifications of this affair. Later, when sitting in the courtroom for the first time, Kross’s performance is startling, as he realizes what is happening and that he can’t let anyone around him know this. This is a young actor with quite a future. Kate Winslet’s Hanna is a woman who falls in love with a boy/man who can read to her. This is how she gains knowledge. Her scenes with Michael on a bike trip are freedom. We don’t find out how Hanna was discovered later, but the adult Michael’s decision to eventually befriend her is in an unusual way. At the end of this year, there are two films about the Holocaust that tell of it in unusual ways. Boy in the Striped Pajamas through the eyes of a child, and The Reader through the eyes of a young adult. Both discover important things they didn’t know and experience the actions of others that affect their own lives. Oscar nominations could come calling here for Kate Winslet as Actress and David Kross and Ralph Fiennes as Supporting Actor, plus photography, and script adaptation. Copyright 2008 Marie Asner