The Reader

This would have been a better film if it tried to do less, had maintained a sharper and narrower focus. Trying to negotiate four time frames within the film, in order to illuminate an unseen fifth, namely the Holocaust, dissipates the drama and overreaches the truth. Of course, Kate Winslet’s opportunity to age prosthetically probably won her the Oscar, but for me she only registered at something like her own age. The film falls apart when she goes from pairing with David Kross as her teenage lover to Ralph Fiennes in the character’s later incarnation, as the haunted lawyer who failed to provide her with an alibi (she was unable to read, so couldn’t have been responsible for a falsified report) when it came out that she had been an SS guard at a concentration camp, subsequently tried for murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. In the end, Stephen Daldry’s film (and David Hare’s script from Bernhard Schlick’s novel) offers more exploitation than illumination, relying on prestige rather than honest emotion or clear viewpoint. A stripped-down version would have had a cleaner (though nicely dirty) impact. (2008, dvd, n.) *6* (MC-58.)