The Reader

The Reader (2008)
It was a toss up between going to The Reader and The Wrestler, and The Reader won, because the book had come in at the library at the same time. I noted also that the cinema tickets had gone up to $16, so it might be time to dig out my dvd rental card for a while (til the film festival at least).

Something about Ralph Fiennes and Kate Winslet makes them a magnetic watch, and this movie is no exception. I thought a good job was done of the period piece without making them cliche characters, from a Hollywood imagined past, but real and three dimensional. Even something so simple as making the haircuts look authentic made it so much more real, than a movie like Charlotte Grey where the details were I think overdone.

Michael is 15, and one day on his way home from school meets Hanna. They become involved over one summer, but it is not til 10 years later that their paths cross again, and Michael learns about Hannas past.

Certainly an adult story, containing nudity and sex scenes, maybe not one for the kids. I liked the moral questions it raised about who was responsible for the deaths at the camps during the second world war. If eight thousand staff worked at Auschwitz, why weren't they all found and prosecuted? 4/5