Winslet headlines a strong film that lacks clear and unified meaning

Rating: 7/10 (25 January 2009)

There's no denying that "The Reader" is a well-crafted film. Director Stephen Daldry ("Billy Elliot," "The Hours") has proved himself more than capable of handling a struggle as deeply internalized as that of Michael Berg (David Kross), a German teenager in post-WWII Berlin wrestling with the shame of an affair with an older Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), who herself is wrestling with having been a Nazi. There is no question that despite the film being about guilt and shame and how the characters are affected by bottling it up, that Daldry is able to successfully communicate the story, its emotions and keep it visually interesting (though Winslet is the true master of this skill). Yet somehow, "The Reader" doesn't manage to drive any kind of message home. It drives home three or four instead of clearly focusing on one.
Ironically, a character at the end of the film suggests to an older Michael (Ralph Fiennes) that if he's seeking catharsis he should turn to the movies. Well, not this one, at least. It's really hard to pinpoint what this film is about. Is it about a scandalous love affair and its implications? Is it about the guilt that is never absolved when one commits crimes of genocide? It's even hard to tell who the film is about because Winslet is as powerful of an actress as there is when it comes to commanding the inner monologue that she'll have you convinced the movie is about her even when--from a bare bones perspective--it's really about Michael, or at the least their relationship.
There's just too much for the viewer to reconcile in "The Reader." Between overtones of suggesting we should feel sympathy for a Nazi and understanding why older Michael is being so emotional about Hanna decades after they were last intimate, there's no room for clarity. While you can certainly feel captivated by Winslet's facial expressions portraying a heavy clash of guilt and shame, that doesn't help you better understand why her ex-lover is struggling emotionally to get through law school. It might not seem right to say it, but Winslet is so good that she becomes more a part of the film than perhaps she was intended to be.
Audiences will like "The Reader" for its parts, but not the sum of them. Each subplot, each essential question, gets addressed in some way by Daldry and writer David Hare, but the main idea, the message as a whole, is unclear. There are so many satisfying bits and pieces, scenes, symbols and imagery that appear particularly artistic and poignant, that there's something for everyone viewer to connect to, but together they feel almost meaningless.
Because of the thematic identity crisis, there are some structural issues with the film as well. While the producers wanted you to know about Schmitz's dark past, the film ignores the fact that you know for the first 45 minutes or so. It begins telling the story chronologically from the day Michael and Hanna met but then ends up shifting more frequently. These different 'time zones' don't exactly succeed well on their own either, they're all a part of the greater story, which as we know, is not entirely clear.
"The Reader" is an example of why Winslet is every bit deserving of the acclaim she receives and of how you can take something seemingly unfilmable and give it visual life and make it interesting. In a year as full of remarkable films as 2008, it's simply hard for "The Reader" to stand out, especially with some flaws that keep it from being a deeply meaningful film in addition to a well-made one.