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The Reader (2008)

Director: Stephen Daldry

Time Out rating

Average user rating

43 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Ralph Fiennes is Michael Berg, the present-day narrator of this film and Bernard Schlink’s 1995 novel, a middle-aged German lawyer whom we first encounter making breakfast for a younger bedfellow but refusing to exchange intimacy for commitment. We reconvene in 1958 and 15-year-old Michael (David Kross), a clever child from an academic family, loses his virginity to taciturn Hanna (Kate Winslet), a mysterious, 36-year-old trolleybus worker whom he encounters in the street. He falls in love; she enjoys hearing him read from Tolstoy until she disappears one day without warning. Several years later, Michael, a law student, encounters Hanna in a new context – one that reveals devastating facts about his former lover. A new, unusual relationship emerges, at a distance, and one that stretches over many years. To reveal more would damage the debate at the film’s heart: an argument that pitches feelings against facts and, necessarily, asks more questions than it answers.

David Hare’s unshowy, thoughtful screenplay, Stephen Daldry’s unfussy direction and Roger Deakins and Chris Menges’s impressive cinematography are faithful to the detail and tenor of Schlink’s novel, which is a complex beast in simple clothing. ‘The Reader’ has been called a Holocaust film but that’s not entirely accurate. It would be better tagged a post-Holocaust work as it pitches itself between the known facts of that cataclysm and the unanswerable philosophical questions of its fallout relating to responsibility, law, justice and forgiveness; all the while considering education, and literacy, as crucial to those debates. Its dynamic is generational: Schlink and Berg are second-generation voices, embroiled in first-generation issues, addressing a third-generation audience. Its issues are infinite and moveable. It’s a bold and challenging work.

Author: Dave Calhoun 2008-12-30 17:45:08

Time Out London Issue 2002, Jan 1-7, 2009

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User reviews of this film

antonella said...

Posted on May 05 2009 21:27 I think "the reader" is a fascinating, moving film, I can also understand why some would not like it. I believe that to put a novel into film is not an easy task, those who have read the novel , disliked the film, I think this is quite common. I also find the negative comments of some of you interesting...But if someone fall asleep during the film I dont think is because the film is boring, but maybe this gay needed a rest, so better going to bed rather than sleeping in a cinema.... :)

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Simon Cooper said...

Posted on Mar 20 2009 20:00 I fine The Reader an almost-perfect film. From the first shot of a boiled egg, which somehow made visual the repression of Ralph Fiennes, we are grabbed and know we are watching something beautiful, precious, a work of art. The acting is impeccable, especially David Kross as the young boy experiencing his first love, a love which will shatter his life.
Kate Winslett is utter believable, and the love/sex scenes done with great taste and never exploitative, a tricky skill indeed. This film should have got Best Film and Best Director Oscars instead of the ghastly "Slumdog". I think along with "The Hours" it shows Stephen Daldry to be a director of great subtlety and talent. I would see any film he made.

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Ric_Braz said...

Posted on Feb 24 2009 09:05 Without doubt your last offering is the most pretencious, garbled drivel I have ever read. For someone who has so much to say, but actually says very little, you sure do not know where the shift key is. I preferred your first literary assassination where you said how much you disliked it, said you had not seen it and gave it 3 stars.

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PERFECT DAY said...

Posted on Feb 22 2009 13:58 UK - are you still sucking on a fag?
You sound more wheezy than you ever did.

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usman khawaja said...

Posted on Feb 22 2009 05:49 A GORGEOUS ILLITERATE CHEKOV FAN WITH A TONED BODY AND 3 JOBS ]---------------kate winslett seduces ,she cooks ,she cycles ,she bathes her teenage lover in a bathtub ,she sacrifices her job for him ,she becomes a martyr and then she learns to read after appreciating homer and chekov simultaneously as she is also recruited by socialist nationalists who fail to determine her educational qualifications into three jobs where she is obviously interviewed but selected so nobody at the trial for her war crimes at aushwitz mentions anything about her ouvrae while all other records were enough to be scrutinized in detail but her introspective curriculum vitae was of no consequence .
a ludicrous fable with even ralph fiennes totally miscast where he has no semblance with his 15 year old self played by david kross -this has too many flaws in the script to even be commended as a fantasy adventure .
the hilarity of how we contemplate illogical fiction and fake art is exaggerating in the search for an origonal script which is restricted to philandering morons like danny boyle and second rate plagiarised versions of bollywood .
winslett plays a woman who indulges in sex tantrums and kama sutra in german glory with close introspective observations of her adolescent lover and his crown jewels ,
her choice of langerie is somewhat dubious as in the swimming sequence in the idyllic ravine ,but she has a rather kind nature as she takes a huge blame for a whole national crime to become a scapegoat and a martyr for the entire german nation who according to this fable built thousands of death camps and killed millions in a milieu where millions were aware of the crimes as well as the rest of the world too .
but then were dachau or auschwitz ever bombed or even strafed by allies just so they could bring the wires down and help the inmates escape .
although a church is bombed with 300 jewish women locked inside to burn alive while the six gaurds are wary to let them out as they might not be able to control the chaos .
this rather paranoid ,pretentious and contemptuous view of humanity tries to make us feel guilty by implying we are all criminals as we observe the laws but not morality .
unfortunately the transient milieu has no respect for any law either and morality was the first casualty when adam and eve decided to indulge themselves.
there goes the debate about law and morality and justice which is rare and precious in all eras and milieus .
the reader is not just illiterate it is also dyslexic like its admirers who could not decipher a working woman on a tram reading tickets cannot be illiterate .
as for kate she deserves an oscar for all the aerobics she indulged in to tone up for the erotic german kama sutra with her youthful well endowed lover who cannot get over her because she was such a typical dysfunctional sadomasochistic character who slaps him for a birthday present .
there are other hysterical idealistic youth too who suggest everyone who knew about death camps must be shot .
it made me think about abu garib and gitmo bay and what that would imply in modern terms .
also congratulations to lena olin for giving the most snobbish and exaggerated performance of a death camp victim who has survived aushwitz ,
she denies others absolution but to me it seemed she needed it herself with her atrocious arrogance and an attitude which redeems jade goody as a saint .
finally the war crimes court needs to be rebuked for a mistrial as they did not look at the educational qualifications of a woman on trial who was bent on martyrdom to win a golden statuette .
they fully aided her endeavours to perpetuate a so called moralist drama that ridicules not just holocaust but art in particular as propagandist trash .
watch this if you like to see full frontal nudity and some well designed sex circus between an illiterate woman and her adolescent paramour and forget the rest

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nic said...

Posted on Feb 17 2009 10:39 Very interesting and thought provoking. I didn't understand each characters motivations all the time, but then I think that is part of the power of the film, that you can read into it what you will. Definetely worth seeing.

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matt said...

Posted on Feb 13 2009 21:35 to colin hall dexter: have you ever read the book. because you completely miss the message in your relentless search of imperfections. the book was written in english therefore the movie is as well. you probably were disappointed after they stopped showing the sex scenes and was pissed off after that

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fascinated said...

Posted on Feb 10 2009 09:48 Like all good art, this film seems very divisive, which proves that those who don't like it are wrong because of the above statement. QED

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Ric_Braz said...

Posted on Feb 10 2009 09:07 Usman, whilst mentioning dyslexic you might actually like to look at your own feeble and utterly negative report and realise there are a stack of spelling effors and no puntuation whatsoever. Why people like you get near a keyboard to write such ill informed drivel is beyond me. The reviews are split between those who loved it (most) and those that seem to hate it with avengance but they rarely admit to why this is.

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Tim said...

Posted on Feb 09 2009 14:07 I thought it was a beautiful and moving film. No one moved a muscle when it ended, we all sat in the cinema shell shocked... most of us cried...

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PEFECT DAY said...

Posted on Feb 06 2009 08:30 UK. Stop boasting about your two intelligent friends.
I have an intelligent car. Peace brother.

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usman khawaja said...

Posted on Feb 04 2009 19:53 i do not intend to even go near this mis conceived mis printed dyslexic reader
two of my very intelligent friends and they are jewish went to see it
and the wife had to shake her husband awake inthe end
she gave it half a star
i am generous as i have not seen it i wont give any or just 3 for charity

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Fatli said...

Posted on Jan 29 2009 11:32 This is the best film I have watched so far this year. I was really touched by the powerful endless love from Michael Berg to Hanna; I have wept for quite a while during the movie. People always say, your first one is always your most unforgettable one; but the love from Berg is beyond unforgettable; of course it is unfair to other women came along later in his life and Hanna has a big impact on him. Anyway, you cannot explain love in logical terms, if you can, it is not true love, right? As usual, Ralph Fiennes is very good in playing this type of character. Kate Winslet performance is excellent. This movie is beautifully made in every aspects. Just wish I am as lucky as Hanna; to have a man loves me unconditionally and believes in me no matter what happens in life.

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Sallyt said...

Posted on Jan 22 2009 09:18 I have great difficulty staying awake in the evenings and so was worried when my local cinema was not showing this film during the daytime when I prefer to go. However I didn't even yawn! I found the film engrossing and very well made. A real thought provoker. Winslets performance well deserving of any award which may come her way and young David Kross a star of the future. Not so keen on his transformation into Ralph Fiennes - too disimilar in looks to be credible. A good story, well told. I saw the film with my daughter and our homeward bound discussion of Hanna's situation varied in that she found Hanna guilty and responsible and I found her innocent and pathetic. See this film and make your own mind up.

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Russell said...

Posted on Jan 22 2009 09:17 If you like the kind of film that raises questions that don't have easy answers this is probably the film for you, quite apart from which it's an incredibly brave performance from Winslet, that should see her pick up masses of awards, its the kind of performance that reminds you just how good an actress she is. .. and helps forgive some of the dross she has been in. The performance of Kross too is also seriously impressively although Fiennes does take some of the edge of the emotions with a performance of sustained somnambulistic tendency.

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