|
|
|
|
 |
The Reader (2008)
The awkward handling of the language barrier, in which English with fake German accents is replacing actual German in the old-fashioned and not too stylish manner, isn't the deepest of The Reader's problems, even if it does little to help the case. Kate Winslet stars as a former nazi servant whose horrendous acts during WWII come back to haunt her some twenty years later. In the meantime, she has a sexual summer flirt with a 15-year-old boy (Kross) whose eventual obsession with the woman colours the rest of his life. The Reader is at its best portraying the interdependency and steaming eroticism of Michael and Hanna's relationship. David Kross' passionate and energetic performance animates an otherwise detached film, giving it a much needed zest. Unfortunately, it all becomes flat and spiritless in the film's second half, and Stephen Daldry's bland direction can do little to reverse the process. Instead, we suffer through this self-conscious and dwelling drama along with the aged Michael who, in all fairness, should have let it all go a long time ago. There is some powerful material along the way, such as the courtroom sequences in which a great Winslet makes Hanna's personal denial clear to us, but it is hard to sympathise with a character whose choices are so destructive and unsatisfactorily motivated as hers. As The Reader approaches the end, there is too much symbolism and too little progress for this potentially potent story to make the wanted impact.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
