| The Reader [DVD] [2008] | ![The Reader [DVD] [2008]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/519F1Y%2BNcqL._SL160_.jpg) | Director: Stephen Daldry
Actors: Ralph Fiennes, Kate Winslet, David Kross, Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara
Studio: Entertainment in Video
Category: DVD
List Price: £19.99
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Rating:  84 reviews
Format: Anamorphic, PAL
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region: 2
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number Of Discs: 2
Running Time: 118 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 5017239196287
ASIN: B001O9AQXC
Theatrical Release Date: 2008
Release Date: May 25, 2009
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Amazon.co.uk Review
What is the nature of guilt--and how can the human spirit survive when confronted with deep and horrifying truths? The Reader, a hushed and haunting meditation on these knotty questions, is sorrowful and shocking, yet leavened by a deep love story that is its heart. In postwar Germany, young schoolboy Michael (German actor David Cross) meets and begins a tender romance with the older, mysterious Hanna (Kate Winslet, whose performance is a revelation). The two make love hungrily in Hanna's shabby apartment, yet their true intimacy comes as Michael reads aloud to Hanna in bed, from his school assignments, textbooks, even comic books. Hanna delights in the readings, and Michael delights in Hanna. Years later, the two cross paths again, and Michael (played as an adult by Ralph Fiennes) learns, slowly, horrifyingly, of acts that Hanna may have been involved in during the war. There is a war crimes trial, and the accused at one point asks the panel of prosecutors: "Well, what would you have done?" It is that question--as one German professor says later: "How can the next generation of Germans come to terms with the Holocaust?"--that is both heartbreaking and unanswerable. Winslet plays every shade of gray in her portrayal of Hanna, and Fiennes is riveting as the man who must rewrite history--his own and his country's--as he learns daily, hourly, of deeds that defy categorization, and morality. "No matter how much washing and scrubbing," one character says matter of factly, "some sins don't wash away." The Reader (with nods to similar films like Sophie's Choice and The English Patient dares to present that unnerving premise, without offering an easy solution. --A.T. Hurley
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| Customer Reviews:
 A deep, thought-provoking film. Unmissable. February 8, 2009
Nicola Jarvis (Herts, UK)
107 out of 112 found this review helpful
The Reader is adapted from a novel of the same name by Bernhard Schlink (a novel I have not read, and one I must add to my ever growing reading list), whether it is a faithful adaptation, I cannot say. Regardless, the film has powerful messages and raises important moral questions which are incredibly difficult to answer.
The basic plot is easy enough to lay out: it is 1950's Germany; a young boy of fifteen, Michael Berg (David Kross), is sick on the streets, when an older woman in her late thirties, Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), finds him and helps him home. After recovering from his illness, Michael goes back to thank Hannah in her home, and an affair begins. It lasts for one summer, and Hanna abruptly leaves without a word. Six years later, Michael, now a law student, comes across his former lover in a war trial, where Hanna is one of six female defendants - all of whom are former guards of the concentration camps. A secret, that Hanna deems so shameful that she would rather be found guilty of mass murder than disclose it, secures the tragedy of this highly emotive and moving film.
The film's narrative is told through flashbacks (though the narrative eventually catches up to the present time) from the older Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes) and although it was so many years ago, although it was only one summer in his youth, it becomes evident that he has never moved on and has affected his whole life.
The first warning I would give about this film is to not watch it with your parents or other relatives - the first hour of the film has very graphic sex scenes and includes full frontal male nudity. This part of the film is a bit slow going, and since I had not read a single thing about the film before I sat down (all I knew was that Winslet and Fiennes starred) I began to sigh and wonder if I had unwittingly walked into a softcore porn film. It becomes obvious later on why so much time is spent on the actual affair, so although it gets a bit tiresome, its effects come into play and makes the film a lot more satisfying in its full context.
It is the first time leap, six years after the affair, that the film really begins to pick up. The trial itself is the highlight of the film. It is superbly written and the performances are inspired. The seminars in which the students and their professor discuss the proceedings of the trial is particularly powerful.
There is not one weak performance in sight, and I could not honestly say who out-acted who out of the three leads. Winslet is always reliable, but her turn as Hanna renders her truly deserving of all the nominations (and wins) she has received. Kross depicts the innoncent love of a fifteen year old boy and the pain that ensues with deep authenticity. Fiennes does not get as much screen time, but he captures it everytime he appears, playing as full grown man but still with the sense of innocence and pained youth which he has never quite been able to get away from.
"What would you have done?" Hanna asks the silent stricken courtroom. The sense of human morality, alongside with contemporary and prior laws, authority driven behaviour, duty, obedience and different cultural beliefs are spun into one when the court asks Hanna why she did not unlock the doors to a burning church with hundreds of Jews inside. The certainty and the obviously matter of fact demeanor that Hannah inhabits on trial raises so many questions: who has the right to judge who? Should a court of a different time, of a different social context condemn actions of others made in the past? But in what circumstances should mass murder be left unpunished? Can anyone possibly understand a person like Hanna? Is it the case that somebody like Hanna who could love, who could feel, that a young boy fell in love with, could honestly have killed hundreds of Jews? Were all the guards not really sadists, criminals and cold-hearted, but normal, ordinary people? These are just some of the questions that this film asks, but cannot find answers to. I doubt the audience will be any closer of the answers.
It is these thought-provoking matters coupled with the human aspect of Michael Berg and how the holocaust affects the following generations that truly makes this film unique, inspiring and moving. This film is unmissable and whilst I imagine it will gain some critics by putting concentration camp guards in the position of sympathy, they may well miss the point that it is not so much about understanding Hanna, but following the journey of a boy who unwittingly fell in love with a former SS guard and trying to come to terms with it.
Haunting and compelling drama April 10, 2009
kdog (uk)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
The Reader is a haunting and compelling film directed by Stephen Daldry based on the novel by Bernhard Schlink. From the first opening sequences you are immediately drawn in the life of the two protagonists Hanna and Michael played by Kate Winslet and David Kross.
It is clear from the opening shots that Michael is unwell the young schoolboy returns to thank the tram conductor who helped him outside her house. An unlikely relationship develops between the two and Michael accepts it without questioning it to deeply.
I would definitely recommend getting the book as there are some nice scenes which have been omitted in the film which make more of Hanna's problems-[I don't want to give anything away this concerns the time she checks into a hotel and Michael leaves her a note.] Also in the film Hanna doesn't follow Michael to look at him one last time before leaving. In the book there is a real sense of tension leading up to this point. In the film there is a slight nuance at the end where Michael confronts Hanna about her guilt and whether she has learnt anything; in the novel Hanna comes to this epiphany herself by ordering books on the subject from the library. Certainly it is clear from the novel how Hanna has cast a big shadow over Michael's life so that he is portrayed as a victim himself failed marriage with a daughter he doesn't see very often and unable to sustain a meaningful relationship.
Beautiful,evocative,sad and compelling no wonder Kate Winslet swept up all the awards for the film supported with sublime performances from Fiennes and David Kross.
Essential lessons for our arrogant modern times. January 13, 2010
Albie (Lancs)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I have only read a few of the amazon reviews but most of them seem to miss the point of this movie. Certainly a lot of the american reviews around are so busy falling over themselves in their attempts to publically critise the supposed nazi sympathies that the true lessons in this story totally pass them by. We are so arrogantly confident that we evolved humans in this modern world would never be party to such atrocities as the jewish holocaust. We have no time or stomach for explanations from or understanding for the thousands of ordinary germans (i.e. not Hitler and all the other high ranking powerful) who complicitly worked in the camps or in other ways did nothing to prevent the slaughter of their fellow humans. This is made clear both by Michael's classmates and by the surviving daughter at the end of the film. But refusal to understand what motivates someone to comply leaves us powerless to prevent it happening again, blind revenge is not enough.
The kind of repressed personality that would rather be condemned to prison than admit the shame of illiteracy is exactly the kind of person who would be in complete denial of their choice of role and actions as Hanna was. We know that it is not from a desire for atrition that she takes the blame and so does Michael. This is why he does not reveal her secret, not because he hasn't got the guts as some idiot reviewer put it. Michael knows that she doesn't 'get it', she hasn't learned the lesson. It is the danger and the effects of denial and repression that is the lesson all over this film (you see it in Michael's family life too), they create humans capable of these terrible acts and allow them to feel comparitively guiltless. We see Hanna continue after the war to find and exploit Michael, to abuse him and control him and then callously abandon him. How can this woman continue to behave in this way? She is clearly capable of normal emotions, she is not a sociopath. She is an abuser and uses others to meet her own ends (and there are many many of those in the 21st century), but we do feel compassion for her and we need to. We need to in order to understand her, in order to move beyond the hatred and the revenge, nothing else will get us to see that atrocities can and do still happen, committed by normal human beings, shaped by a culture of denial and repression.
Since the end of the war, american foreign policies have been directly responsible for the deaths of over 8 million civilians across the globe, the lessons have still not been learned.
convincing, involving and beautifully made January 18, 2009
Mr. Ian A. Macfarlane (Fife, Scotland)
41 out of 48 found this review helpful
Having read Bernard Schlink's thoughtful book, I wanted to see 'The Reader', and Kate Winslet's recent triumph at the Golden Globes just added to that. The film is very faithful to the book - only a couple of things are added (one, a visit made by Michael, the central character, as a law student to Auschwitz, a bit questionable, I think ; another, Michael's relationship with his daughter and how it is used in the film, a definite plus). This is the tale of a six-months affair between Michael, a 15-year-old Berliner, in 1958 and Hannah, a sensuous, probably lonely mid-thirties tram conductress, in her small rented flat, and the effect of that affair on the young man in older life. Hannah likes him to read to her, and he does - book after book. The physical side of their relationship is, for him, completely new, exciting and wonderful, and he does fall in love with her ; she also with him. Suddenly she leaves, for a reason which is clear in the book but not really in the film, and the next time he sees her she is in court, on trial for war crimes - she was a camp guard at Auschwitz. He attends the trial as a law student, with his peers and his professor, and her presence in the dock comes as a profound shock. For those who do not know the book I don't want to give away too much, but the trial, which is very absorbing, has a devastating effect on Michael - the moment when he becomes aware of Hannah in court is one of many very powerful moments in the film. Things are not quite as they seem, and he knows it. The book (and the film) follow their lives for another twenty years or so. He re-establishes contact of a kind with her and does things to help, but of course this relationship must remain hidden from everyone he knows, his closest family included, and so it continues to the end of the film, when at last he begins to unburden himself.
The film has great integrity. It is almost totally convincing, in its attention to detail, its tone and the performances of the central actors. Kate Winslet is absolutely marvellous, in a role which is hard-edged but much more sympathetic than you could imagine. It is a performance of great range, but it is never over the top, and some of her best moments are quiet ones, when she has little or nothing to say but conveys much by a look, a gesture, a way of walking even. You can see exactly why the boy would love her, but equally how she came to be a camp guard. The young German actor who plays Bernard, not an easy role at all, measures up well to it, as does Ralph Fiennes as his later self, the troubled lawyer. There is a good cameo from Bruno Ganz (ironically, the actor who was such a marvellous Hitler in 'Downfall') as the law professor. But, Winslet aside, it is the film overall which works, not any one performance in it. There are some wonderful moments - when Michael senses who is on trail, as I said, when Hannah makes a damaging courtroom admission, when she re-establishes contact with him in a way which is both surprising and entirely appropriate, and at the end (I won't be specific, because that would give too much away). All in all, it is an absorbing and sometimes very moving two hours or so, and just as the book does, it forces us to confront the question that Hannah asks the judge in court (beautifully voiced by Winslet, not as a moral challenge but simply as the thing that comes naturally to her mind at that moment - the obvious question) ; what would you have done?
P.S. (23rd. February 2009) - it's very nice to know now that Kate Winslet has won the Oscar for Best Actress to add to her Golden Globe and BAFTA awards - they seem very well justified.
Crikey January 30, 2009
Anna (London)
18 out of 21 found this review helpful
It's not an easy thing to watch a woman in her 30s seduce a 15 year old boy. The sex scenes are relatively graphic in a timid, virginal sort of way, and there is a lot of nudity; some of which is male full frontal, so for anyone who is easily offended, this probably isn't for you.
Kate Winslet is good in this. I don't like saying that because, grump, I don't like her much. But within 5 minutes you actually forget that's who she is. She plays Hanna Schmitz, a tough ole bird who works on the trams, and is arrested for her role at Auschwitz extermination camp. Young Michael (played by newcomer David Kross who is a revelation) loves her with the innocence and ardour of a 15 year old boy... but it's a love that lasts in some form for over 40 years.
Their lives go in very different directions, but the Summer they spent together binds them together for life.
It's beautifully filmed, of course. Scenes of sitting by a lake is quintessentially 50s, as are the lovely sunshine scenes of cycling through the countryside. It flickers between then and 1995, highlighting how profoundly the world has changed. The Reader is one of 3 current blockbuster films that deal with the holocaust; the others being Defiance and The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas and, truth be told, this isn't the best of the 3. Defiance wears that particular, questionable crown.
This is still a wonderful film, though, and it does leave you with questions, although perhaps not the ones intended. Where we're supposed to question whether we would have done what she did (a resounding no... could you have a hand in the mass suffering and murder of innocent people?) I was more left with the question of whether a good person can; whether someone need be inherently evil, and whether it would be possible to love someone who had been involved in something so full of horror. Am no closer to finding any answers.
Winslet will probably win the Oscar, and it's probably deserved. But young David Kross is the star, portraying a mixture of guilt, innocence, and the subsequent loss of it, beautifully.
Not an easy film to watch, for several reasons (as previously mentioned by another reviewer, the scene where he walks past the discarded boots of the murdered Jews is one of the more shocking I've ever seen), but one that comes highly recommended. If, however, you can only handle exposing yourself to one film about something so painful, watch Defiance. It may not be as "Hollywood", and it doesn't have any sex scenes, but it's a true story and those people deserve to have us know what they *actually* went through, and what they *actually* did. I can't help but think we owe them that.
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