The Reader (2008)

Directed by Stephen Daldry. Starring David Kross, Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, Bruno Ganz, Lena Olin, Burghart Klaußner, Alexandra Maria Lara, Volker Bruch, Karoline Herfurth, Jeanette Hain. [R]

Torpid, borderline-appalling period drama conceals a “secret” of such moral turpitude that it can hardly be believed, yet director Daldry treats it with such dull but artistic grace that the viewer is left to believe the melancholic presentation is earnestly romantic. In postwar Berlin, teenager Kross enters into an abusive relationship with tram conductor Winslet (about twenty years his senior), but he’s gaslit into believing it’s one of tender devotion and longing; several years later while attending law school, his class observes the trial of several women accused of being death camp guards during the Holocaust, one of whom is his former rapist. Exceedingly tasteful in its shallow exploration of tasteless themes and story elements, there’s no faulting the production qualities or Nico Mulhy’s distinctive score, and at least the filmmakers seem to be serious about its toxic ingredients instead of exploitative, but that doesn’t negate how wrongheaded each new revelation is, the worst being how Winslet’s character organizes the tiers of her shame. The seeds of a more fascinating topic are there—generational advocacy for benighted silence in the face of an incapacity to comprehend—but they never get a chance to germinate, and the protagonist’s internalized pain feels so much like passivity that he can’t seize attention in any scene (Fiennes plays him as an older man, primarily in the final act). Script by David Hare from Bernhard Schlink’s parable novel. Oscar winner for Best Actress.

35/100