The Reader
Director: Stephen Daldry
Writer: David Hare (screenplay); Bernhard Schlink (novel)
2009
The Reader is one of those ‘heavy’ films – it stays with you long after it’s over. The story is told from the point of view of Michael Berg (played by both David Kross and Ralph Fiennes) about his love affair with Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), whom he only finds out years later was a prison guard in a concentration camp. Hanna is an extremely complex character for she always holds something back so other people cannot get to know her too well and find out about her past. But it is not just this concealment that makes her so complex, there is something about her that draws the audience in, and it is, I believe, her brief moments of humanity – of a woman who wants love but cannot reconcile her past actions to allow herself to be loved. Because we know of her past, we begin to question any sympathy we might feel for and because of that we are in the same position as Michael, torn between what our emotions and our logic are telling us. Kate Winslet gave The Reader a superb performance that rivals all other actors of her generation, but Michael Kross must also be given his well deserved accolades for his performance of a young naïve boy dealing with first love, strained familial structures, deceit, cultural-personal-societal implications of war, and how the pains of that first love stays with him, influencing the person he becomes. I highly recommend you see this landmark film.
