The Reader

Winslet deserves an Oscar for her amazing performance.

An immaculately crafted, splendidly acted drama with a message at its core of forgiveness and humanity. It's also blatantly manipulative, and, upon reflection, rather banal. In other words, it's the epitome of Oscar bait and almost serves as a step-by-step guide to creating such a beast.

Bernhard Schlink's highly regarded novel "The Reader" receives a graceful, absorbing screen adaptation by director Stephen Daldry.

The epitome of middle-brow 'quality' drama -- admirable within its limitations, but Bernard Schlink's Oprah Winfrey Book Club-approved book wasn't exactly literature, as this isn't exactly cinema.

The Reader is ponderously self-important and smugly Socratic, brimming with unfinished sentences and pregnant pauses; if a single character would only say what he thinks, the movie would be over in 30 minutes

The Reader feels weighty, all right; but it's an unsatisfying kind of weight, and Fiennes' presence, as the grown-up Michael, doesn't help much.

The shallowest "serious" film to be reeling this year.

I was impressed with this film. It is truly memorable. The story begins with young Michael, a German boy in his teens. He meets Hannah, a tram ticket collector somewhat older than himself, and is attracted to her. Later, they both start a very intense love affair, which marks the discovery of sexuality for Michael. The case lasted only one summer, but it impressively marked him: years later, already as a law student, he will find Hannah in a difficult situation, when she is accused of several heinous crimes related to ****. This film has an excellent script. The story of love and physical desire between the main characters may shock some people by their age difference, but I confess that I didn't feel uncomfortable with that. Hannah's permanently grumpy and rude attitude bothered me a lot more. The way in which the film approaches various situations that are morally debatable in a neutral way does not seem negative to me, it ends up allowing each viewer to think for himself about it. I also think that the psychology of Hannah has not been fully explored. There is so much about her that the film does not reveal, so much that we wanted to know... I feel that this is intentional, due to the way it involves the character in a tasty and charming mystery. Another thing that caught my attention was the nudity. The sex scenes are sometimes quite visual, although always short... it was not something that shocked me or that I really considered a problem, but some parents should consider it before leaving teenagers to see this movie. In addition to an attractive script, the film features good actors. Kate Winslet is the big star of the film and, really, is in excellent shape and gives us a superb interpretation. She deserved, in fact, the Oscar for Best Actress that she won with this work. The very young David Kross showed that it is a promise of European cinema with an intense performance of a shy, withdrawn and sometimes naive young man, and Ralph Fiennes did not disappoint us in the mature version of this character, offering us with an elegant and restrained work. The cast also has a good work by Bruno Ganz. Technically, it is a discreet film that does not bring anything new, despite doing what has to be done with professionalism. Cinematography is the standard, but it makes good use of the filming locations, also knowing how to play with shadows: in fact it is a cloudy film, and the Sun, like joy, rarely appears (as in the bicycle trip that the two central characters, at the height of their happiness, do it together). The sets are good and the costumes and props were chosen in order to recreate, with caution, the periods that the film is going through (from the 50s to the 90s). The soundtrack is good, but I confess that I didn't find it memorable.

The heavy resonance of a silent past: A 3.0-star "stagnant" drift through moral ambiguity.2008 (3.0)I watched "The Reader" in the theater in 2008, and it remains a respectable 3.0-star record in my archive—a film that captures the "raw" and "pathetic" weight of historical guilt without fully achieving a "sensational" emotional breakthrough for me. This theatrical experience provided a visceral "revelation" of how literacy and shame can intertwine with a dark, high-tension legacy, **** the fourth wall of typical romantic dramas with its gritty, post-war reality. While Kate Winslet’s "vivid" performance provided a "chewy" and sophisticated layer to the narrative, the overall rhythm felt somewhat "stagnant" in its somber pacing, lacking the rhythmic "hororong" energy found in my 5.0-star masterpieces. The 95% preservation of my memory is dominated by the "raw" vulnerability of the secret held within the pages, yet the emotional connection remained intellectual rather than 100% immersive. Unlike the "1.0-star traumas" of my past, this movie offered a sense of "silent satisfaction" through its steady execution and moral complexity. However, it lacked the "vivid" high-tension payoff needed to leave a permanent, "sensational" scar on my soul. It stands as a 3.0-star entry—a "vivid" snapshot of systemic failure and individual tragedy that was fascinating to observe but ultimately felt a bit too "stagnant" in its emotional delivery to be truly transformative.

you don't have the power to upset me.. The Reader The innocence and the selfless act behind it is the key and the makers were aware of it and narrows it down to it and brings out the best from the book gaining passion, attention and love from the viewers. Stephen Daldry despite of possessing such a beautiful script fails to project it on screen convincingly which makes the audience switch seats on picking a side, for the writing and adaptation is equally powerful on the other side. As these features require, the performance is not compromised on any level by Kate Winslet; she is brilliant, and also Ralph Fiennes from the supporting cast. The Reader has a powerful yet beautiful concept as we all are aware, but also the adaptation and the editing which provides enough space and range to the characters and the actors to flaunt themselves but what's indigestible is the execution and it doesn't pay well in the end.

Stephen Daldry's take on Bernhard Schlink's controversial novel is as cold a Holocaust movie as I've ever seen. The pseudo-intellectual mumbo-jumbo the film exudes, cleverly disguises its hollow and empty premise. It embraces irrelevance and glosses over relevance. Had it not been for standout performances from Winslet, Fiennes and Kross, there would've been absolutely no reason to praise the movie. The Reader doesn't just fail as a character study but it also fails in being a meaningful film.

It is hard to like a film that is so depressing and dull at the same time with characters less interesting than blank wallpaper. The film doesn't give you anything to care about or notice besides the characters being naked half the time in the movie.