Wish I could rate this one higher but...

Rating: 6/10 (12 July 2018)

There are already many excellent reviews covering the thought-provoking story of "The Reader". I decided to write a quick review because the story was important and, for the most part, well-written and well-acted. But, in my humble opinion, to make this a truly great movie, and the material deserves more attention, this film needed another pass through an editor's hands to remove the extraneous sex scenes.
The subject matter is serious but I found myself wondering if the costume budget had been drastically cut given how many scenes are shown of naked people. I only needed one sex scene to set the stage for the passionate affair between Michael and Hannah. The repetitious sex scenes became gratuitous and boring. Not one of them was original but instead were reminiscent of those that had gone before in "Summer of '42", "The Graduate", and many others. A good 20 minutes in sex scenes alone could've been cut and the movie would've been better for it. As it was they became an unwelcome distraction from the actual point of the film. And that's a shame because once we get beyond them the movie really takes off. Until then, however, my inclination to stop watching was great. I'm glad I didn't, but I did want to warn others. It gets better. A little fast-forwarding may be in order.