No Easy Answers

Rating: 9/10 (16 February 2009)

The Reader is the best kind of movie, because it engages the mind with puzzling and yet interesting ambiguity. Daldry, the director and Schlink, the author, leave their intentions not so much transparent, as invisible. That is refreshing, when the story involves places and events which usually are presented to illicit one reaction from an audience. That's not the case here; and you may find yourself thinking about the film for weeks after seeing it. Essentially the movie is about forgiveness of others and of ourselves. In this scenario, everyone is revealed to have something to feel guilty about. But because the filmmaker and author present so many facets of the story, no heroes or villains emerge. Is Winslet's character guilty or the worst kind of victim? What kind of background did she have that left her unable to read and a slave to authority? It's a tribute to Winslet that we care so much about her character's back story. Fiennes' character could be equally indictable on his failure to divulge key evidence in the trial, despite his being an aspiring lawyer. Even Lena Olin's saintly writer is not shown to be without taint in a scene that shows her smugly living on her profits from the stories of the murdered. The blurring of right and wrong is what makes this movie so much better than typical Oscar contenders.