The Reader

Birneybau

Anybody seen "The Reader" yet?

Not a great film,falls far from the worthiness it was trying to achieve.

Must be a slow year for it to garner 5 Oscar Nominations including BEST FILM!

johnny_ultimate

Yeah wasn't a fan myself - first half was solid enough historical 'coming of age' drama, but once they started fast forwarding to other points in the character's life (

from the trial onwards

, it fell apart, and was wishing for an ending around half an hour before it came - they just kept on trying to hammer home the message. Sequences

in the prison or visiting the victim's home

seemed redundant and just dragged on, just rubbing in the fairly simplistic issues which are easy enough to decipher for yourself.

I do think Kate Winslet is absolutely extraordinary in it, as usual, and she elevates it to something worth watching, but the rest of the film wasn't nearly surprising or engaging enough. But it is the kind of film the Academy laps up, and I hope they see sense and reward the more deserving likes of Milk or Slumdog over this.

Birneybau

I did'nt think Kate Winslet was that great in it at all.

Bar the great Bruno Ganz,dont think any of the performances were for that matter.

Could'nt care for any of them.

Pigman II

I thought it was very good. Better than I expected anyway.

jdscrubs

Recently saw the reader.

Liked it a lot. Depressing. Wouldnt agree with the views that the 2nd half wasnt as good as the first half. Thought Kate Winslet was very good as was the young lad. Be a hard decision between her&Jolie for best actress. However I havent seen the other 3 films that the other ladies have been nominated for. Ralph Fiennes wasnt great. This film is one thousand times better then that overrated piece of junk called Slumdog.

The only thing that occured to me was "spoiler for those who havent seen it", when in court&Winslet's character was asked to sign her name which she couldnt cos she couldnt read nor write, how was this a surprise to the young guy then as it was plainly obvious to me & any one else who I know saw the film. I hope this wasnt meant to be a twist for our sake cos if it was, it was a bit stupid.

Acacia

I thought it was quite good actually. Fiennes and Winslet's performances were excellent. It is quite depressing and slow-moving, though (I like those kind of movies though :pac:). I will say though that this didn't really make sense-

why wouldn't Hannah admit she couldn't read and write , rather than getting a life sentence?

Aside from that I thought it was brilliant.

Amazotheamazing

Acacia wrote: »

I thought it was quite good actually. Fiennes and Winslet's performances were excellent. It is quite depressing and slow-moving, though (I like those kind of movies though :pac:). I will say though that this didn't really make sense-

why wouldn't Hannah admit she couldn't read and write , rather than getting a life sentence?

Aside from that I thought it was brilliant.

I think it's a play on how German people ended up doing terrible things. Hannah applied for the SS job because she had been promoted in the Siemens factory to a position that would require her to be able to write. Her inability to write forced her into that position. The German people elected the Nazi's in a time when they felt they had no other choice and were forced to go along with them into World War two. Hannah couldn't predict she'd end up having to select people to die, the German people couldn't foresee the concentration camps. But then, when Hannah could have owned up to being unable to read, she didn't do so, in the same way the German's could have stood up to Nazism. Hannah's failure to act (either as a guard or in the Courtroom) doomed her in the same manner even modern German's have to deal with the "war guilt".

I don't think the story is simply to be taken literally. Hannah damaged Michael even though he didn't realise he was been damaged at the time, he has to live with what happened during that relatively brief period his whole life, in the same way Nazism, over a relatively short time, destroyed Germany. Michael makes the point at the end that although he has suffered through Hannah, others suffered far more, in the same way the average German ultimately suffered as a result of Nazism, but of course, other people suffered far more. The contrast of ignorance and awareness is made throughout the film, in the end Michael chooses to make his daughter aware of who he is, which shows he learned something I guess.

Course i was only half watching the film, so apologies if I'm way off.

Sleazus

Saw it. Hated it.

It isn't half as smart as it thinks it is.

I almost gave it credit for the sequence where the survivor's daughter tells Michael that nothing should be compared to or excuse the holocaust - it's incomparable. It's a solid point, which the movie soundly undermined by using Hannah's illiteracy and Michael's failure to take responsibility for her as thematic counterpoints.

The film didn't deserve a nomination ahead of The Dark Knight, Gran Torino, Wall-E, Revolutionary Road, Doubt, The Wrestler and a good few others.

It wouldn't be a bad film except it's so damn proud of how intelligent it thinks it is. I have a lot of bile for that movie.

That said, the last third was fairly okay (and moving), just it didn't work thematically with what came before and seemed exploitive.