Blind Prophecy

Still making my way through the Oscar Best Picture nominees. Tonight, I took in The Reader.

You can expect spoilers beyond this point.

At the risk of sounding grumpy, I’ve now seen 4 “okay” movies in this category and none of them have really blown me away as the breakout favorite for Best Picture. Even now, moments after watching the end credits, my memory is reducing this film to: 45 minutes of Kate Winslet’s breasts on display (~2 minutes of David Kross’s ass on display, 5 second of full frontal); 45 minutes of reliving Nazi atrocities; 30 minutes of Ralph Fiennes moping around and feeling bad his life.

Okay, so the story follows the relationship between Michael Berg and Hanna Schmitz. Begun when Michael was 15 and Hanna was, well, a grown woman, their romance blossoms as Michael reads to the illiterate-but-too-proud-to-admit-it Hanna. Hanna suddenly disappears. Ten years later, Michael is a law student attending the Nazi war crimes trials. Hanna was a guard at Auschwitz. Her fellow guards finger her as the leader and rather than admitting she cannot read or write, Hanna is sentenced to life in prison. Michael begins sending her cassette tapes in prison where he reads books to her and she teaches herself to read. The week before she is to be released, Michael and Hanna finally meet again. It’s awkward. Michael has grown up to be a distant, closed, emotionally crippled man who has alienated his daughter from a failed marriage. Hanna offs herself. After Hanna’s death, Michael visits a survivor who was part of the trial that convicted Hanna.

If you’re thinking, “wow, that sounds depressing,” you’re not wrong. But, c’mon people, it’s a story about Berlin after WWII, it can’t possibly be anything else.

I would compliment the cinematography/direction, but when I think back on it, it seems rather cliche and familiar. Gee, a visit to the death camps shot in muted gray and shadows. A picturesque lake filled with carefree young people! Oh, and a remote, quiet church where our characters were once happy and may learn to be so again and a parting shot of the camera pulling back from a graveyard like a spirit ascending to heaven!?! It’s like a parade of boring.

Alright, so now I’m sounding more negative about the film than I actually feel. I’m the guy who raved about The Spirit, after all. (In my defense, I have quite different standards when I’m watching a movie to be entertained and when I’m watching a movie because I’m told it’s “important” or “one of the best”)

I don’t know that there was anything moving about Kate Winslet’s performance, but I stopped paying attention to her after Titanic (yes, I suppose I’ll be watching Revolutionary Road at some point, too), so if a stony-faced, grim and secretive former Nazi is a stretch of her acting skills, you’ll have to let me know. I thought David Kross as young Michael Berg carried the lion’s share of the movie’s emotional arc, leaving Fiennes to avoid emoting as long as possible in the latter half.

Anyway, although this was a decent movie, I think I’ve been burnt out on better holocaust movies at the Oscars (Schindler’s List, Life is Beautiful, The Pianist). Of the four films I’ve seen in the best picture category, I currently rank The Reader my fourth favorite. After this it’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, then on to the other categories.

Filed under: movies by Jere Keys