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Features Actors:Kate Winslet,David Kross as a teen, and Ralph Fiennes as the adult Running Time:123 Min. Rating:R Kate Winslet stars as Hanna, the bedraggled West German workingclass accidental seductress of painfully horny high school boy Michael (David Kross as a teen, and Ralph Fiennes as the adult) coming of age in a comfortable but rigid late 1950's bourgeois household. One day while Michael is heading home from school, he falls ill and throws up in front of Hanna's seedy apartment building. And when she comes to his aid and invites him upstairs to clean himself up, Michael is hopelessly smitten while watching the cranky loner as she irons her bra, a chore that females apparently used to fuss about prior to the women's liberation movement. Though Hanna is no wilting flower. As soon as the strangely aloof, mysterious sudden sexpot senses Michael's raging hormones and thwarted libido, she's ordering Kid - as she is fond of calling him to presumably keep him at emotional arm's length - into her tub for a round of sensual bathing, and engaging in a game of mutual hide and peek with the lusty lad.The heated but conflicted affair complicated by age and class contrasts soon runs its course, with Hanna suddenly disappearing without a word one day. But not before a highly unusual element of foreplay enters into their steamy, hermetic, forbidden world, namely Hanna's insistence that he read books to her before each sexual encounter. This story is with an immensely engaging array of daring twists touching on morality versus law. And at the same time, political corruption of a nation between governments and its citizens, as well as the Nazi inter-generational legacy. Not to mention a devil's advocate, brutally candid reconsideration of the entire notion of just following orders, and deference to no matter what authority. Hope this helps you decide.Thanks for reading! :)Read full review
I'll have to hand it to the film-makers and producers, the screenplay writer, the director, & the actors. This novel, written by Bernhard Schlink, truly comes alive on film at the end of 2008 to win Kate Winslet an Oscar for Best Lead Actress. This film, directed by Stephen Daldry (The Hours 2002), was brought to the screen because of the genius of screenplay writer David Hare, who also worked with Daldry before in Plenty (1985). To take such a complex story such as The Reader and bring it to life was the greatest challenge since it is told in first person through the life-long experiences of a young German adolescent Michael Berg (David growing into manhood within the newest generation of their country's war torn atrocities. Many cues had to be in place in order to portray the emotions necessary to pull off the roles of both old and young character Michael Berg (played by David Kross and Ralph Fiennes). David, only 18 at the time, had many things to overcome in playing this role, one being his language barrier/lack of English literacy. The rest seemed to come naturally, however, even at his age, it was like he had to be taught about the 1950s post war era from a new perspective (living it). It would be extremely tempting here to spend my time telling things about this film from a synopsis (matter of fact) point of view, however, I feel that would be just a waste of time since you could read many things from other reviewers. I thought it very important to point out that the story here was not being told from the perspective of the victim in as much as how they saw the story, but through innocence in love directed toward a perpetrator of a heinous crime against humanity. With Berg, his love & understanding towards his mature lover was enough to drive his childhood memories in a positive direction regardless of how emotionally disturbed he seemed to be at that time. We have to regard the mature Michael Berg as a child in a man's body when it came to his affair with Hanna Schmitz (Winslet). No discussion was ever mentioned in the film about the age difference between the two, but however extremely morally reprehensible you may feel about an older woman (15 years or so) having a sexual fling with a minor, the film was not trying to do some crazy taboo thing here. The book & the film both were trying to tie the emotive substances of 2 different post war torn generations together & allow us to try and make some kind of sense out of it all. Whether you do or not is going to rely on your own experience & non-judgmental biases. Ralph Fiennes was the perfect fit for the mature Michael Berg. Although, I myself never really picked up any cues that their was any flashback in life going on here. As I was experiencing the screenplay & references to the main characters, I completely never really figured out what the connection was to soon be revealed about who and what the mature and young Michael was going to have in common. I blame this mainly on the editing, since after watching the deleted scenes (almost as long as the film itself), I picked up on the cues much easier. Perhaps the first cue (Fiennes staring out at a passing train, then switching scene to a young man riding in train) was supposed to be the cue, yet too subtle for my palette. Many wonderful actors and production people can be mentioned, but I'll take time to mention that 2 of 3 producers (Anthony Minghella & Sydney Pollack) both passed unexpectedly before completion.Read full review
This is an adaptation of a novel by the same name. I expected from the cast and direction, that this would be an emotional film. I did not expect the level's of excellence that I saw. The plot directions are fairly predictable - until they are definitely not! If you are prone to getting very involved with your film appreciation and are very vocal in your demonstrations - watch this film alone first... When you come out the other side of this emotional minefield you see human love and passion -first displayed as innocent and as cosmically intended as possible, then - Well watch the film. All I can say is: If Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus ever collaborated on a film script, and they wanted to really define romantic futility - they might have come up with something equally as gripping and hard to handle as this movie. A must see!Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Seduction, drama, sadness plus great performances make a good watch!
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
The movie was done very well. Kate Winslet and the young man really captivated me. Especially when he finds out she was a guard in Auswitch. You can feel the actors characters very much. Kate won an Oscar for this role.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New
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