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The Reader
| Actor(s): Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, David Kross, Bruno Ganz, Matthias Habich Director(s): Stephen Daldry 15 |
Movie Details
| MPAA Rating: R Content Advisory: Nudity, Sexual Situations Movie Release: 2008 DVD Release: 04/14/2009 Format: DVD - Color,Letterbox for TV Audio Tracks: English, French Subtitles: English, Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 2 hrs 4 mins Studio: Weinstein Company Members Wishing: 89 Genres: Drama, Romantic Drama, Period Film, Psychological Drama See Also: The Reader [Blu-ray] |
DVD Synopsis
Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes star in The Hours director Stephen Daldry's haunting period drama concerning the relationship between a 15-year-old German boy and a mysterious woman twice his age, and the way that it grows doubly complex when the man reencounters the woman years later and discovers a shocking truth about her past. Based on author Bernhard Schlink's best-selling novel of the same name, the film opens on the character of Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes) in middle age -- cold, remote, and emotionally withdrawn. It then moves back in time to 1950s Berlin, where ailing teenager Michael (now played by David Kross) has fallen ill with fever, and is discovered in the street by Hanna, a woman in her thirties. After Michael recovers, the two immediately lapse into a torrid affair and Michael falls prey to the confusion of his own burgeoning sexuality. Their liaisons are often marked by Hanna's request that Michael read to her (hence the title). Later, when Michael returns to Hanna's flat and finds it deserted, her absence becomes an emotional blow for which he is completely unprepared, and indeed, scarred for life. The film then moves forward in time by eight years. Michael -- now a law student -- walks into a courtroom and comes across Hanna, one of a series of Nazi prison guards being tried for murderous war crimes during World War II. As he watches her on the witness stand, memories of their past experiences together bring him to the point of realization concerning a startling, long-buried truth about Hanna -- and Michael knows that if he divulges this information, it could modify the prison sentence handed out and dramatically alter her fate. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Actors
Kate Winslet - Hanna Schmitz
Ralph Fiennes - Michael Berg
David Kross - Young Michael Berg
Bruno Ganz - Professor Rohl
Matthias Habich - Peter Berg
Ralph Fiennes - Michael Berg
David Kross - Young Michael Berg
Bruno Ganz - Professor Rohl
Matthias Habich - Peter Berg
Member Movie Reviews
Vanessa V. (sevenspiders) wrote on 9/16/2009...
1 of 1 member(s) found this review helpful.
My first impression of The Reader was Hugh Jackman's jaunty opening-song at the Oscars..."The Reader- I didn't see The Reader..." I was prepared for another overrated, uber-depressing Oscar drama about miserable people doing miserable things for the sake of being miserable. After that, a surprisingly touching, fast-paced and intrguing drama that raises legitimate questions about guilt, morality and responsibility was a pleasure and an astonishment.Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes are fascinating and compulsively watchable, even with the most minimalist acting. Winslet is just enough of an enigma as the paradoxically sensual and aloof ex-Nazi. She is as sympathetic as a person who truly deserves to die can possibly be. Fiennes and the brilliant young David Kross together capture the before-during-after loss of innocence, much more emotional than physical, of the young man Winslet clings to in the post war days.
These characters are more honest than many. Their lives raise and acknowledge questions that really matter without any evasion- certainly this ex-Nazi deserves punishement, evil is evil whatever the circumstances that lead to it. But why just this one? Amidst a charged trial that reveals the atrocities Winslet's character was part of, she is one of a team to whom genocide was just a job. Circumstances single Winslet out as the ringleader- whether she was or not- and she shoulders the shared guilt for reasons of her own. Justice is at once served and escaped.
Much has been said of the sexual relationship between the two characters at the beginning. Certainly this is a movie for adults, and opening scenes are as frank and honest about two people's enjoyment of each other and irritations with each other, as the later scenes are about injustices and atrocities. They are frank and explicit, but not unnecessary or gratuitous.
The Reader is a very rare movie, one of the quietest films of the decade but one whose whispers stay with you long after the final credits.
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