catholiclefty

The Reader is a perplexing film, that seeks to make important points about all manner of important issues and yet somehow seems to fluff all of them, resulting in a film that neither satisfies or enlightens.

Very clearly divided into three parts, though with an intrusive non-linear thread that more-or-less-pointlessly interjects from time to time, we start with the story of the affair between a young teenager Michael and the older woman he meets, Hanna. This section goes on for far too long, and feels like an almost endless succession of scenes with people taking their clothes off and, sometimes, putting them back on again. It quite quickly tends towards the gratuitous rather than the informative - not least because we don't have, and won't get, any motivation for most of what happens. What purpose does Michael's illness serve, other than kicking off the plot? Why is Hanna attracted to him anyway? We see her interest perk up when he mentions 'reading', which is explored to some degree later, but it is hard to believe that he's the only person around she could persuade to read for him. As for the throw-away scene where we are told, utterly out-of-context, that 'the notion of secrecy is central to Western literature', I felt like an anvil had been dropped on my head!

The second part consists of two big reveals - that Hanna is a former SS guard, on trial for her role in a massacre of hundreds of Jews on a forced march, and that she's illiterate. This throws up all manner of questions that are blatantly broached and then ignored for the rest of the film. Notably - why did Hanna sign up for the SS in the first place, other than that it was there? And what conclusions are we supposed to reach from the entire film without getting an answer to that question? Yes, we do examine, briefly, what little choice she had once signed up and doing her duty as a guard, but to explicitly raise the question of why she was in that position to start with and then avoid any answer is a fundamental failing of the film. Are we supposed to know that she knew what was going on before she signed up, or not? ('Everyone knew', says a throw-away character at a different point in the film, another point not followed up on). And then why does she prefer the shame of being held directly and solely responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocents rather than admit the shame of her illiteracy? Is she actually anti-Semitic? Brainwashed still by Nazi propaganda? Her inscrutability and undeclared motivations hobble the entire film.

Other questions surface too : the role of this kind of trial, after the event, is touched on and equally carelessly discarded. As is the question of 'it doesn't matter if it is moral, it only matters if it is legal', which may be an acceptably narrow view in a law classroom but is breathtakingly problematic in a situation such as Nazi Germany, yet it is stated and never questioned or investigated. And could young law students really take themselves off for a self-guided tour of Auschwitz with literally no-one else there?

The third part of the film examines Hanna's time in prison, and the effect she has had on Michael's life. Again, this is frustratingly ambiguous. Hanna learns to read - you've got to wonder why she didn't bother before, given how much she appears to love literature. And it is difficult to care when she shows no remorse or understanding for her actions, and we don't know why she did them in the first place. Is learning to read a substitute for remorse or a cure to a previous lack of understanding? Well, who knows. Certainly the film doesn't want to do us the courtesy of even dropping hints. Michael meanwhile is stuck with Hanna a bit like a distant albatross that won't quite get out of his life - which is an effective way of representing the problem of post-war Germany with struggling to cope with what happened and what the people did. This, at least, is reasonable story-telling.

Kate Winslet is decent, but in my opinion not especially outstanding, in the lead role of Hanna. If outstanding acting involves taking your clothes off a lot, and later on wearing lots of 'old' make-up, then this is outstanding, but my definition is rather wider. I've preferred her work much more in other films than here, even if she is very good on occasion (such as the courtroom scenes, and one or two scenes near the start, though they get subsumed by the reams of nudity). In terms of 'motiveless ex-SS guard who likes sleeping with teenage boys, being read to, and is embarassed she is illiterate' she's quite possibly very good all round - I've no idea how you're supposed to be playing that, but in my book a outstanding performance would give us nuance and hooks in order to beneficially fill in the gaps in the narrative, and on two viewings I didn't get any of that from this performance.

Ralph Fiennes, conversely, impressed me a lot despite being given very little to play with. Subdued and yet involving, this is a well-realised performance in a role that really doesn't have much character. The only criticism really is that he doesn't seem to be connected to his 'younger self' played by David Kross in any real way - mannerisms, speech patterns, or anything else. David Kross is ok, but doesn't stand out for most of the film - he seemed surprisingly passionless given his role involved lots of passion and confusion. Given they keep Winslet through the film, changing the actor playing the other main character as he ages seems an odd decision, especially so when there's no discernable effort put into making the characters match up in any physical way. I'm glad they did, as we get a very nice performance by Fiennes that we wouldn't get otherwise; nevertheless it is somewhat of an odd decision.

This is overall a problematic film, this almost holds together for much of the running time, but the almost tedious nudity, the lack of motivation, and the muddled messages all cause this to fall short. As do minor but glaring errors in the script (how can there be a survivor of a fire in which 'everyone died'? 'Everyone else died', perhaps, might work better?) 5 out of 10, for decent performances and some degree of attempt to tackle a difficult subject, which even so ends up not working out very well at all.

And as a final note, calling Kate Winslet's performance here 'supporting' is appalling category fraud. I know people want her to win awards after just missing out lots of times in the past, but (a) this performance is good but not at all so good that it deserves to win things and (b) even if it did, it should be in the correct category. There is nothing 'supporting' about this leading role - she's in almost all the film, she's the only person in all the film (the other character changes actors mid-stream) and the film is as much about her as it is about anyone. And she's the first name on the cast list. Not supporting, not in the slightest. Just in case you missed my opinion there, I'll tell you one more time : this is not a supporting role. Ok?!