Too long and unfocused

Rating: Null/10 (8 February 2009)

This movie is based on a novel, with a screenplay by a well-known playwright. I didn't read the novel, but maybe it did a much better job of explaining the actions of the characters in the movie. Maybe it had a little suspense, too.
The movie is split into four different time periods, or four different acts. In the first act a teenage boy in postwar Germany falls in love with an older woman. He reads to her and they have a lot of sex. There is very little tension or suspense in this act. There are many dull and unnecessary scenes at his family dinner table, and many dull and redundant scenes at a lake where the boy swims with his classmates. This act could have been eliminated and suggested during the rest of the movie as the "backstory".
The second act has the boy in school where his class goes to the courtroom and attends a trial at which his former lover is accused of being a Nazi war criminal. This is the interesting part of the movie, where the moral dilemmas are presented. The woman is convicted to many years in prison based on a report that she could not have written because she was illiterate. She does nothing to save herself because she is ashamed of being illiterate. The boy has two decisions to make -- will he visit her in prison and convince her to defend herself, and will he address the court and attempt to reduce the charge? He decides to do neither. What a weak and unsympathetic character.
In the third act the boy is now a man, still obsessed with the woman in prison. He records books on tapes and send them to the woman. In prison she listens to the tapes, borrows the books from the prison library, and teaches herself to read. She removes the shame of being illiterate and is proud of her new ability. When it becomes time for her to be released, the prison calls the man and convinces him to help her make the transition back into society. This time he does the right thing, finds a place for her to live, and visits her in prison. But then he also asks her a question that makes her feel guilty for the atrocities committed in the war, and she kills herself. At least I think this is why she commits suicide. Honestly, I don't know.
In the fourth act the man is older and reflecting on his past. This act is split into many parts and interspersed throughout the movie as a framing device. The man tries to reconnect with his daughter. This has nothing to do with the real story, and could have been eliminated from the movie. Also, he takes a box belonging to the dead woman to a survivor of the atrocities. Maybe this is supposed to give some sort of redemption to the the man and dead woman, but it falls flat. Like the first act, this one could have been cut with no great loss. The real story was in the middle two acts, where the decisions were made (or not made).
The subject was good and the acting was very good. But with so little conflict in the movie, it was far too long.