Must-see Reader Drama
by Spencer Warren
Issue 123 - January 7, 2009

Some readers may have heard of this new movie based on reports of its impassioned sex scenes between the thirty-plus Kate Winslet and a teenager, played by David Kross. But no one should be put off by this element of the film, for The Reader is an absolutely outstanding drama about human nature, human weakness and the Holocaust. This is a true must-see motion picture for age-appropriate audiences.

Based on the celebrated German novel by Bernhard Schlink, the story begins in Neustadt, West Germany in 1958, thirteen years after the end of the war. Michael (Kross), a sixteen-year-old middle class student, becomes involved in a steamy month-long love affair with a thirty-five-year old streetcar conductor, Hannah (Miss Winslet). Believe it or not, the way the affair begins and then unfolds (a good deal of nudity and passionate scenes in bed) is presented very credibly by the highly accomplished director, Stephen Daldry, and the adaptor of the novel for the screen, playwright David Hare. All this is integral to the story; it is not exploitative.

Following their love-making and, later, preceding it, Hannah likes to have Michael read to her from the literature he is studying in school, such as Homer’s Odyssey and a Chehkov short story. We learn in fact that she cannot read herself. At the beginning they do not even know each other’s name and even after they do, Hannah continues to call Michael, “Kid.” They go on an idyllic bicycle holiday in the countryside, and declare their love for one another. In a country church, Hannah sits alone in a back pew and appears quite moved as she listens to the beautiful music of the service sung by the young choirboys.

Such an idyll, especially one as untypical as this, cannot last. But Michael can never get over his passion for Hannah. Eight years later, now a law student, observing a war crimes trial he is astonished to see Hannah one of the co-defendants in the dock. What should he do? Should he speak up for Hannah despite the awful crimes she is charged with? Emotionally shattered, not least because he has been able to see his beloved again when he thought he never would, Michael can barely participate in his law seminar, in which his professor asks the students to discuss the trial in terms of the question of law as the opposite of justice.

Readers should discover this wonderful movie’s riches and subtleties on their own, so no more of the plot will be revealed here. Suffice to say that the film raises profound questions about human frailty and the Holocaust (which is heard in recollections but never seen in flashback), without allowing excuses. At one point during the chief judge’s examination of her, Hannah asks him what he would have done had he been in her place; he has no answer. Unlike many of those involved, Hannah is a human being, she is not demonized, and we are asked to try to understand her, not excuse her. The film also presents us with the moral dilemma of the shattered Michael. In his silence, is he too blameworthy? In the end, the film very movingly dramatizes issues of closing and catharsis for several of the characters.

The acting in this film is just superb, led by the flaming talent of Kate Winslet, who ages from thirty-five to sixty-five. Sitting in the church listening to the service, or sitting in the defendants’ dock in the courtroom, she requires no words to express her emotions. They are all there in her distraught face. She is completely real, with no glamorization, as this illiterate working-class woman (including her perfect German accent – Miss Winslet as always is a master of accents), who has no family and may never had anything in life other than her affair with the teenager half her age. Her physical movements and everything else about her are true to the character – she completely is Hannah, collecting fares in her prim uniform on the streetcar and in everything else she does. She certainly deserves to win her first Academy Award, after five losses, as best actress for this role. She also deserves great credit for constantly seeking out challenging parts such as this, rather than just trying to be a “star.”

Also fully true to life in realizing their characters are the aforementioned David Kross as the teenage Michael and the brilliant Ralph Fiennes as the adult Michael. Indeed, the entire cast could not be bettered.

The consistent high level of acting (though Miss Winslet and Fiennes are always on top form in their films) may in part be credited to the young director, Stephen Daldry, a British theatrical director who previously had only one major film to his credit, The Hours (2002). His film is unusual for its subtlety – he presents the story and allows the action and characterizations to unfold naturally, raising in an understated manner the issues for the audience to take away and ponder afterward. He films the characters in big shots that take in their surrounding time and place (mise-en-scene, as the French call it), using few close-ups and never lapsing into the tiresome in-your-face television manner of one head shot after another that tends to be standard nowadays. His direction has pace and economy, brilliantly enveloping us in the drama so that we are not conscious of anything else for the film’s gripping two hours. Daldry directs like a filmmaker of vast experience, not the relative newcomer that he is.

The direction is aided by the burnished cinematography of Roger Deakins and Chris Menges , which is particularly effective in the setting of Hannah’s modest apartment where she takes up with Michael. (Note their use of the light from her lamps.) They are also quite good creating the drab picture of Neustadt thirteen years after the end of the war. Another important contribution is the musical score by Nico Muhly. The Reader is rather heavily scored with a relatively high volume soundtrack for a serious drama. But Muhly also recognizes the dramatic effect of silence, of halting the music, as when Michael goes to visit the remains of a concentration camp. The music captures the evanescence of the love affair, as well as the delicacy and gentleness with which the film treats its profound moral questions facing both main characters. Thankfully, Muhly has composed music of orchestral substance (including his use of the oboe) to match the depth of the drama.

The moral questions with which The Reader leaves us, which may be unanswerable, are best expressed without words. They go beyond words. The filmmakers have had the wisdom, discipline and talent to reach beyond the script. It is as if they have created a great work of music to imprint these characters’ dilemmas on our consciences. Go see this wonderful film as soon as you can.

Spencer Warren is ConservativeBattleline's media critic.