Review of The Reader (2008) by Markb. — 15 Jan 2009

Call me crazy, but didn't Sophie's Choice work far better in 1982 when the young protagonist's first love was a Nazi VICTIM, not a perpetrator? The title character and narrator of Stephen Daldry's filmization of Bernhard Schlink's bestseller is a callow creature who hooks up with a streetcar conductor (Kate Winslet) in the 1950s, and due to her demand that he read aloud to her before sex, finds that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn can be just as effective an aphrodisiac as Lady Chatterley's Lover.

Through a series of contrived coincidences, he later learns that his friend with benefits had previously been a concentration camp guard, and he grows into Ralph Fiennes, experiencing a higher-than-average degree of Ralph Fiennes guilt.

Stage director Daldry's one watchable film remains his first, Billy Elliott; otherwise he's the reigning king of WTHITA (What-The-Hell-Is-THIS-About) cinema, a first cousin to the WTHWTH (Why-The-Hell-Was-This-Made) film; his second effort, The Hours, taught that the height of 1950s women's liberation was to, under the inspiration of a suicidal novelist, dump your adoring husband, thus shattering your sensitive little boy's self-image and eventually destroying his life.

The message of The Reader seems to be "Nazi stooges need love too, especially if they're illiterate." Mind you, there's a universe of difference between HUMANIZING evil (as Fiennes did beautifully in Schindler's List) and whitewashing it; The Boy in the Striped Pajamas may have its share of haters, but at least it aptly communicates the horror of the camps.

The Reader, in a misguided attempt to build sympathy for its central figure, deliberately abstracts her crimes and their effects, keeping us at a calculated distance...and no, a last-minute coda featuring Lena Olin (who's nevertheless excellent) doesn't help.

I have no problem with Winslet winning a Golden Globe (and most likely an Oscar) for her portrayal; she admirably delivers a completely unsentimental performance that in no way buys into the filmmakers' apparent intent--in fact, under the circumstances perhaps she should also be up for a Congressional Medal of Honor.

As for the rest of The Reader, if I want to look at Nazi porn (or, more precisely, if I'm forced to at gunpoint), I'll rent out Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS or one of its sequels, which at least have the ever-so-slight advantage of unpretentiousness.