Review of The Reader (2008) by Alexis M — 10 Jul 2010
After Hancock and Collateral, my faith in cinema was restored with The Reader. Enter Kate Winslet, a 30-something single gal in post-war West Germany.
(SPOILERS...) She makes a high school senior really, really happy one summer. Then she moves away to avoid an office job for which is not qualified, in the most basic way possible. Years later, said high school senior is reading law and finds out his old gal pal had volunteered for the SS during the war and worked as a concentration camp prison guard. Yikes. Not sexy. A trial follows.
Where some movies might make *that* the reveal of the movie and be satisfied to have made us like Kate Winslet and then hate Kate Winslet, this movie changes our view of her again as more is revealed. (Not that the final reveal was surprising, unless you had missed clues that even cartoon detective dog Blue could have uncovered without much help from Steve.).
The movie also touches on more general issues related to the philosophy law ("gesetz als gesetz") and the elephant in the room (or in the country) after the war ("everybody knew").
Finally, Kate Winslet continues her much appreciated tradition of showing off her b00bies in her movies, which upon reflection, should have been my lead.
This review of The Reader (2008) was written by Alexis M on 10 Jul 2010.
The Reader has generally received positive reviews.
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