Excellent one of the best

Rating: 10/10 (10 February 2009)

The most heart rendering, touching, disturbing and yet immensely beautiful movie of the year. I can not remember when last time I was so much moved by a film. Only another movie coming in mind called Monster's Balls. I don't know why I am comparing these two movies, apparently nothing similar but perhaps somewhere vast intrigues of human mind and its dilemmas, the complexity and overall hands of destiny bring the character of Halle Berry with Kate Winslet and Billy Bob Thornton with Ralph Fiennes.
The human pride has collapsed dynasties in histories. The Reader takes you to a journey of what human pride and fear of being ashamed can bring down on us, perhaps life long imprisonment to someone just to keep the secret; to someone else it perhaps brings rotting in the agony of repent and living a life worse than death.
This movie poses many glitches of relationships. Accepting love as of any situation is the key, listening to heart and be bold in love is another. Why did young Michael could not meet Kate during trial? Why didn't he save her? Was it his own fear of exposing an apparently socially unaccepted affair or was it the respect towards his once lover's secret what he bore although his later life. Can someone just be convicted of guilt even the then law and order compelled her to do the job? When Hannah asked the judge "what would you have done if your were in my place?" not only makes him and the juries to silence but also brings the question before us, what would we have done if we were born during Nazi regime and sent to camps as guards? Could there be a choice? What will be her alternative? So many questions...I was dumbfounded with numerous questions of our social structures and be-wilderness of human natures. And overall sometimes people think they can find their ways in lives but never tries to understand what their hearts want. Is it his weak nature or is it moral dilemma to protect somebody who is convicted of felony? But then who is responsible
I am sure when you watch this movie you will face similar questions. If Kate Winslet doesn't win Oscar for this role then it will be injustice to this beautiful actress who portrays her character with so much subtleties and nuances that I have seen rare in recent past. Same applies to the character of young Michael by David Kross and nonparallel Ralph Fiennes as the elder one. The expressions of this English Patient actor are marvelous. But it is no doubt a Kate Winslet movie all in all. A wonderful creation by Stephen Daldry and exceptional cinematography.
I thought Slumdog was the movie of the year but then that was a loud movie. The re-fineness of the Reader is very exceptional, sets it miles apart from other movies. It is in that genre of movies that tell complexities of love and its non-confluent ends, or you keep on thinking was it not supposed to be like this. Would it be made more beautiful when at the last scene Ralph Fiennes finally opens up his closed heart to her daughter? I don't think so.