The Reader Was an Emotionally Manipulative Snoozefest

Rating: 3/10 (18 February 2009)

Former Nazi SS officer learns that reading is fundamental. That should be the tag line for The Weinstein Brothers Oscar nominated film: The Reader, featuring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes. It is the story of an emotionally constipated man, Michael Berg (Fiennes), who cannot open up to anyone and it is all because of an affair he had with an older woman, Hannah Schmitz (Winslet) when he was 15 and she broke his heart. The affair was torrid and in between sex romps, the boy would read to the woman and it acted as a kind of aphrodisiac for her. The affair lasted one summer in the late 1950's in W. Germany. The film than moves on to the meat of the story, when several years later, the young man goes to law school and he is taken on a field trip to see a trial of former SS guards from Auschwitz who are on trial and it turns out Hannah is one of the guards on trial and he is shocked. With Hannah's fate in the balance, will she make a decision to protect her pride rather than her life. Michael has information that could affect the outcome of the trial and will he use it to protect his long lost love. These are the supposed harrowing questions that we should be made to care about. But I for one did not.
I was bored watching this film. There's no guts to it. The courtroom scenes were slow and contrived. Too much talking. I can only say Director Stephen Daldrey is to blame. Film is a visual medium afterall. I can go on but I'll just finish the review discussing the acting. I was uninspired by Kate Winslet (who is a very good actress) and after all the Oscar talk about her being a shoe-in to receive the Oscar for Best Actress for this performance, I couldn't wait to see ho much better it had to be than Revolutionary Road, which I believe she should've been nominated for instead (also a boring film by the way). I felt she didn't really believe in her character. Her accent was uninspired and at times she would give a glimpse of emotion but it was fleeting, particularly one scene in the courtroom. Granted this is a provocative role, especially with the sex scenes with the young Michael but her character, like Michael is stunted emotionally. I didn't feel she had much going on underneath to make her stoicism palatable. Neither did I find Ralph Fiennes (another excellent actor) performance all that good either. Actually, the only actor I enjoyed watching was Lena Olin who plays a Holocaust survivor. Bruno Ganz who plays Michael's law professor was equally disappointing. I usually like Bruno's work, but I felt like he was indicating and forcing his lines. So, we have a pretty sound cast, in a wasted effort. The whole film feels contrived and emotionally manipulating due to its subject matter. Once again, we have a film that forces German guilt on to us. I have a strong feeling about this, after vacationing in Berlin last spring and seeing how much the Germans still berate themselves for the war. The nation should be prescribed Prozac in my opinion. The Holocaust was a tragic, horrible and an unthinkable blight on humanity , but the fact that substandard films about this subject continue to be revered by the Academy virtually every year grows tiresome to me. The fact that The Dark Knight or even The Wrestler was passed over for The Reader is ridiculous. I am hoping Meryl Streep or Angelina Jolie gets Best Actress next week.