Sexy, earthy 'Reader' an appeal for healing
Sex, the world's favorite metaphor for just about everything, gets a strenuous workout in Stephen Daldry's earthy cinematic translation of Bernhard Schlink's international best-seller "The Reader."
Doing the nasty links two generations of German citizens in 1958. Fifteen-year-old Michael Berg (David Kross) becomes sick while walking through rain-soaked streets.
A thirtysomething train fare collector named Hanna (Kate Winslet) comes to his aid, and they begin a torrid affair that offers unlimited sexual experiences for Michael. For Hanna, she receives the pleasure of having classic stories read to her by her much younger lover.
Michael spends as much time with Hanna as he can, so much time that he doesn't socialize with his own peers, even with an attractive girl very interested in him.
Hanna often acts with passion, sensitivity and tender instruction. But she has an underlying coldness that reveals itself in needlessly brutal assaults. "You don't matter enough to upset me!" she barks at Michael.
The teen remains crushed only until Hanna wants to hear another story.
One day, Michael arrives at her abandoned apartment. He hears nothing from her.
Not until 1966, when Michael, now a law student, attends a trial of several women guards charged with selecting Nazi concentration camp prisoners to be executed to make room for incoming inmates.
To his horror, Hanna is one of them.
"The Reader" is, among other things, a story about Germany's postwar generation grappling to understand the actions of their fellow Germans under the Nazis. The accused women deny sending anyone to the death house, except for Hanna. She is perfectly comfortable telling the judges everything she and the other women guards did, and why they did it.
She doesn't get why anyone should be outraged by their actions.
Winslet, who last week won the Chicago Film Critics Award as best supporting actress for her role as Hanna, effectively places an attractive, almost innocent face on a failure of humanity. Hers is an unfussy, completely earnest, transparent performance of an enigmatic character whose unbridled sincerity opens our hearts while her abject honesty revolts our consciences.
The emotionally inert Ralph Fiennes stars as the adult Michael, who by 1995 has failed at marriage, and barely hangs on to a relationship with his grown daughter. His personal olive branch to the aging Hanna provides a small but significant attempt to reconcile the generations in an exquisitely photographed (by Roger Deakins and Chris Menges) and sharply directed drama that ranks as one of the best pictures of 2008.
Note to the filmmakers: Sometimes, it's better not to spoon-feed the obvious to viewers. For instance, people (like the adult Michael) who are not open to other people don't open up to people by saying, "I wasn't always open with you. I'm not open with anyone."