Brilliant

Rating: Null/10 (4 January 2009)

Reader, The (2008)
**** (out of 4)
In post-war Germany a 15-year-old boy (David Kross) has an affair with an older woman (Kate Winslet) and falls in love but weeks later she disappears without a trace. Years later the man is in law school when he goes to a war-crime trial and sees that the woman has been brought up on charges. What follows will effect his life through adulthood. A few weeks back I said Slumdog Millionaire was my pick for the best movie of 2008 but that has now changed as this film will take the top spot. I expected a great movie walking into this thing but I never imagined how beautiful and touching a movie experience it would turn out to be. The film deals with a lot of ugly situations and has some downright heartbreaking moments but I love movies with great stories being brought to life with great acting. Hopefully the Oscars will treat this film very kindly because it's certainly in a league of its own. The film's basic story has the adult (played by Ralph Fiennes) looking back at his first sexual relationship and the effects it had on his life and especially his estranged relationship with his own daughter. I think a lot of what happens to a young boy will have a major impact on his life and I think that's the greatest thing about this film. What happens to be boy starting with the affair and leading up to the trials make for some very compelling drama. I'd say this is a brilliant coming of age story but I'm not sure if that would be insulting the film since there's so much more to it. The film also does a great job with its rather frank sex and nudity scenes. There's quite a bit of both but the film is very mature about it considering the age of the two people involved. The subject of the age is never mentioned as the film just treats it as one thing that happens among many others. Both Kross and Winslet were very brave in terms of their sexuality but their brilliant performances are the key here. I expected a great performance by Winslet since she's perhaps the greatest actress working today but Kross stands right there with her through the entire film. I think Kross' performance is the real key here as we're seeing all this stuff from his point a view and it's up to him to sell the story and the emotions behind it. The actor handles the awakening of his sexuality brilliantly and he's even better during the trial time scenes where his judgement is going to have a major impact on several people. Fiennes is brilliant as well in his supporting role playing the adult . He has couple emotional scenes, which I won't ruin but his acting inside the jail cell might be the greatest I've seen from him. This is a pretty depressing film from start to finish but that's often the case when you deal with a subject matter like this one. Director Daldry does a masterful job handling the different time periods and putting them all together. The story jumps around from decade to decade but all of this is handled with a problem. In many ways this is a love story and on that level I think the film hits a grand slam and turns out to be a true masterpiece without a single flaw.