Mel on the Reader

I saw The Reader finally, and it's still tormenting me. I think it's a good film with excellence in it. Of course, Kate Winslet is truly extraordinary and deserving of the Oscar she received. But in my view, David Kross gives an even more exceptional performance as 15- to 21- year old Michael Berg that makes the first two-thirds of the film far stronger than the last third, in which Ralph Fiennes gives a competent performance as the older Michael. The last act is saved more by a wonderful performance by Lena Olin than by a satisfying conclusion.

The Reader has multiple complexities that make it hard to either digest or weigh its point of view. There's the affair between a 15-year-old boy and a 30+-year old Hannah. There's the subsequent discovery that Hannah was a guard at Auschwitz. There's the trial, in which the antagonism and set-up from her co-defendents leads one to sympathize with Hannah. There are no easy questions or answers here.

In the end, though, the film is more perplexing than thoughtful. By the time Michael connects the dots to discover a critical piece of information about Hannah's life, his feelings have been buried so deep the film seems aimless. This creates an almost impossible task for Fiennes.

Dissertations will probably be written on the affair between Hannah and Michael. Is the affair another manifestation of her inhumanity? Is it as simple as a first-love for a boy with a women who has put her past behind her? Is it a tribute to the beauty and power of sex? Certainly, it is beautiful. Both Winslet and Kross are beautiful and generally naked and in bed for a good chunk of the film.

David Hare and Stephen Daldry did fine work with The Hours, but as troubling and complex as The Reader is, it misses.