engaging and sad, perhaps too sad, with a weaker third act

Rating: 7/10 (26 December 2008)

Maybe I should've read the book. Ironic that a film that has a crucial point being illiteracy should be seen by me, having not read the very, very highly acclaimed book it's based upon. I saw the film with my wife and mother, both of whom had read the book, and they claimed they had a more enjoyable experience (if that's the term used for a tragic tale of first love gone bad and/or strange in the long-term) as they could fill in whatever gaps were missing from what was, according to them, a faithful adaptation. Taking the film on its own terms, how it works in telling its story, it's certainly better than the stuff previous "Oscar-baiter" from Stephen Daldry, the Hours. Certainly Kate Winslet helps every mili-second she's on-screen, and the fact that it's two movies, sort of, makes it interesting when things start to get a little detached.
The first half, what could have made on its own an absorbing story of lust and obsession and hills and valleys in a relationship, is about a near-Last Tango set-up where after a mid-30s German woman (Winslet) in post WW2 Germany helps a 15 year old get home he comes back in some attraction, and soon they start an illicit affair kept pretty much to her (Hannah's) quarters. The big thing is reading to Hannah: she can't read or write, so "kid" reads to her before and after (I'm surprised not during) their sexual endeavors. But, of course, the relationship turns sour since, frankly, the kid Michael gets interested in girls his own age and is screwed in the head over it... It screws with him still when this first sort of movie ends and the second one begins, which is when Michael is a little older, a law student, and watching Hannah on trial for war crimes she committed at Auschwitz.
Sound like fun date stuff? Not exactly, though it may hit the spot for the couple looking for that love story where compromises are few and the consequences are plenty (i.e. if Michael comes forward during the trial with information that could help her a tiny bit, which he doesn't, what will that mean for Hannah who does not read or write and did not in fact write the letter she's accused of writing detailing what to do against prisoners). If there seems to be some kind of problem, and this is just a guesstimate from someone, again, not very familiar with the book, is that in two hours, even for something that's supposed to be a short read, is crammed in. We see a montage of Michael reading countless books on tape for Hannah while she's in jail. It's hard to feel any sympathy for her since, frankly, she's a war criminal in the worst possible way. But there is an identification with the boy who becomes a man, and the essential elements of pride and dignity and intelligence that are touched upon.
At the same time it's also a pretty good love story, one that starts as hot and heavy and probably immature on one end and transforms into something that is kind of like making constant amends. It's maybe a little too polished at times- the musical score goes away at the mood as if it were Notes on a Scandal, which isn't quite right- and without Winslet or Fiennes or for his few minutes Bruno Ganz it doesn't work nearly as well. The Reader does make for some involving storytelling, of something not usually considered which is the conscience of law vs love or the power of words spoken and stories told when a life to oneself (like Hannah's) is worth nothing much at all. It doesn't leave you feeling very good inside, but you'll feel rewarded for the performances and at the least the reasonably hot sex scenes (it is Kate Winslet doing her nude/sex thing after all).