Pride and shame as parts of a fascinating equation... but a slightly disappointing resolution...

Rating: 7/10 (24 December 2016)

A sickly teenager meets a woman twice his age. The early interactions are hesitant and awkward but so emotionally powerful that when the two end up making love, it feels real. I believed in the sex-driven relationship between Hanna Schmitt (Kate Winslet) and young Michael Berg (David Kross) and the way it turned to a life-changing addiction.
The chemistry between Hanna and Michael is integral to the realism and I applaud the aesthetic approach of Stephen Frears who didn't sugarcoat the material because of the controversial age difference: nudity never feels gratuitous because sex is the before it gets deeper, and a new habit grows between the two lovers. Before their 'ritual intercourse', Michael reads books to Hanna, and she enjoys listening to them. There's never a more convincing expression of love in Winslet's eyes as when Michael becomes the reader instead of the lover.
But time goes on, and out of sight, out of mind until Michael crosses Hanna's path again in the 60's during a trial, which will bring some answers about her personality and fascination for reading. "The Reader" then reveals its emotional core, it is not a coming-of-age story, but a character study of two persons bounded by their romance, itself connected to painful war memories, although Michael can't remember the war but he seems to have inherited part of the guilt inhabiting Hanna's heart. And out of debatable pride, both Hanna and Michael will take the most frustrating decisions, frustrating in the sense that it doesn't serve any of their interests.
Maybe this is what "The Reader" is about: things we can't indeed understand because they're commanded by shame and pride, two parts of an insoluble equation that defined the darkest pages of German history. But "The Reader" is another kind of Holocaust movie, the memory of the tragedy is vividly present but seldom mentioned during the film, except through a poignant testimony from the sole survivor of a church fire scene: a Jewish woman who came to identify the former guards who pushed the "zeal" to the extreme of not opening the doors when the fire was set, among them, Hanna Schmitt.
The trial is the central piece of the film, the one that connects between the opening flashback scenes, set in post-war Berlin and the 1990's where Ralph Fiennes play the older Michael. This is also the only moment where the Holocaust is straightforwardly mentioned through a horrific accusation pending on Hanna. She's accused of having signed the Jewish women's death warrant. How could she? She couldn't even read, let alone write. And this is when it gets tricky: if you personally believe that all the pride and shame in the world don't amount to much in some extreme cases, you'll have a hard time accepting the decisions of both Hanna and Michael, which I did, unfortunately.
Hanna is ashamed of her illiteracy and can't publicly admit it, but then how about the shame of having ordered the deaths of three hundred women? It's not just about being a guard and following orders but about deliberately lying and pretending you decided to terminate the lives of innocent people. Basically, Hanna Schmitt would rather be accused of this crime, accepting to be remembered as an evil Nazi than an illiterate woman. We have to accept that from Hanna's standpoint, a reputation of illiteracy is worth the infamy of being remembered as a Nazi. I repeat myself because that's what the film is about: the boos, the insults and the spits in the face are small prices to keep that secret.
Well, maybe that says a lot about Hanna, as there's something genuinely and unconsciously evil in the way she would rather trade her illiteracy for a crime committed under the Nazi flag, just as if one was 'less shameful' than another. But I had too much sympathy for her, to accept to believe it. The whole trial was extremely frustrating to watch, it's not just the crime but also the legacy you leave. To the film's defense, history already proved that people, notably German people, kept their mouth shut although "they knew". But even with the will to suspend my disbelief, I felt like the writing went through an abrupt decline when the trial started.
Indeed, Hanna always talks in such a way to maintain a cloud of ambiguity over the role she played, it's like some suicidal impulses. She can just say "I was following orders", instead of "it was necessary" or "I had to do it", she's like giving dim-witted comments that incriminate her more than if she gave simple but straightforward answers. It's like whatever Hanna can say, she'll say the worst possible thing to lose the jury's sympathy, and it's no wonder all the other guards ended up conspiring against her. Don't get me wrong, Winslet's performance was brilliant and deserved an Oscar, but the script kept me asking "why doesn't one simply say that?".
Young Michael knows he can clear Hanna of her charges but after sharing his concerns with his Law teacher, played by Bruno Ganz, he chooses not to say a word, probably out of personal guilt. But even at the end, when older Michael meets the daughter of the Jewish woman, he beats around the bush. Instead of saying, "she was illiterate", which means that she didn't give any order, so she was no guiltier than the other women. Instead of firmly establish her relative innocence, he says that she was illiterate, that he had a liaison, and it takes forever for the woman to get the point. And I'm not sure she got it.
"The Reader" starts like a movie beyond any reproach but as the plot advanced, it felt like the protagonists would never say what 'normal' people would in similar situations, I understand it's for dramatization's sake, but it's a shame that near the end, realism would be traded for plot contrivances.