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Reader, The
The Weinstein Company


7.0

based on 38 reviews
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based on 31 votes
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MPAA RATING: R for some scenes of sexuality and nudity

Starring Ralph Fiennes, Kate Winslet, David Kross, Lena Olin, Bruno Gan, and Alexandra Maria Lara

The Reader opens in post-WWII Germany when teenager Michael Berg becomes ill and is helped home by Hanna, a stranger twice his age. Michael recovers from scarlet fever and seeks out Hanna to thank her. The two are quickly drawn into a passionate but secretive affair. (The Weinstein Company)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Romance
WRITTEN BY:	David Hare
DIRECTED BY:	Stephen Daldry
RELEASE DATE:	Theatrical: December 10, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	123 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA \| Germany

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Premiere Jenni Miller

Winslet deserves an Oscar for her amazing performance.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

Kross and Winslet's intense performances and Daldry's deliberately placid control of tone make the material work as a love (and hate) story as well as a metaphor.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The Reader is significant because -- like another film opening today, "Valkyrie" -- it asks us to see not just the Jews but the whole German people as victims of the Holocaust, and to view Nazism as more a product of explicable ignorance than inexplicable evil.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The crucial decision in The Reader is made by a 24-year-old youth, who has information that might help a woman about to be sentenced to life in prison, but withholds it. He is ashamed to reveal his affair with this woman. By making this decision, he shifts the film's focus from the subject of German guilt about the Holocaust and turns it on the human race in general.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

There is a sense of ambiguity at the core of The Reader that makes it all the more brutal, all the more honest in its deflowering of love and what one imagines love ought to be instead of what it too often is.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

With this film Daldry, previously the director of "Billy Elliot" and "The Hours," proves himself the screen's reigning master at showing passion thwarted or repressed.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

An immaculately crafted, splendidly acted drama with a message at its core of forgiveness and humanity. It's also blatantly manipulative, and, upon reflection, rather banal. In other words, it's the epitome of Oscar bait and almost serves as a step-by-step guide to creating such a beast.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

This coming-of-age portion is the less interesting half, though it has the more interesting Michael. We have seen Fiennes play an emotionally detached introvert so often that he brings nothing new to the role, apt though he is.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Fiennes brings to the role a shimmering subtlety.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The Reader is closer to a near miss than a rousing success but, on balance, this is still worth seeing for those who enjoy complexity and moral ambiguity within the context of a melodrama.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Winslet's fierce, unerring portrayal goes beyond acting, becoming a provocation that will keep you up nights.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Though the effort is uneven, it's a well-acted romance that becomes a less compelling courtroom drama.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

An engaging period drama. But German postwar guilt is not the most winning subject matter for the holiday season.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

It is only, frankly, the strength of Winslet's performance that rises above conventional surroundings and makes The Reader the experience it should be.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

The revelation that Winslet’s character is a war criminal is the centerpiece of The Reader, but surrounding the Holocaust morality play is another story that’s more modestly scaled and, in this age of unashamed romance between older women and younger men, more contemporary.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Bernhard Schlink's highly regarded novel "The Reader" receives a graceful, absorbing screen adaptation by director Stephen Daldry.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The film is notable for its nice performances, its handsome photography, and its very active music. If the preceding praise sounds generic, so is the movie.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Although the script works in a couple of pages of collegiate-level ethical debate about "the question of German guilt," what the movie is really interested in is the question of German sex. So think of it as "Schindler's Lust."

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

The Reader doesn't do enough to explore the guilt and betrayal the adult Michael feels over the acts of his elders.

Empire Kim Newman

The epitome of middle-brow 'quality' drama -- admirable within its limitations, but Bernard Schlink's Oprah Winfrey Book Club-approved book wasn't exactly literature, as this isn't exactly cinema.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Provocatively intentioned, The Reader is a movie worth seeing - the kind of film you'll think about for days afterward. But when all is said and done, you're likely to wonder why the impact wasn't greater still.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

The film is neither about the Holocaust nor about those Germans who grappled with its legacy: it's about making the audience feel good about a historical catastrophe that grows fainter with each new tasteful interpolation.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The cast is superb: especially Kate Winslet, who transcends, by far, the limits of her character's narrow soul. Yet The Reader remains schematic, and ultimately reductive.

Newsweek David Ansen

The Reader can feel stilted and abstract: the film's only flesh-and-blood characters spend half the movie separated. But its emotional impact sneaks up on you. The Reader asks tough questions, and, to its credit, provides no easy answers.

Time Richard Schickel

Faithful both to the novel's plot and to its higher aspirations. This is not an entirely good thing. On the other hand -- and somewhat surprisingly -- it is not an entirely bad thing.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

So why, despite everyone's best efforts, does all this bigness seem so small and unfocused and simply not up to the task?

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A film made with high aspirations and more than the usual commitment but one that, after an arresting beginning, changes into a passive rumination.

Village Voice Ella Taylor

Like many narrative filmmakers who walk on their tippy-toes when dealing with the Holocaust, neither Daldry nor Hare seems eager to make the material his own.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

The Reader feels weighty, all right; but it's an unsatisfying kind of weight, and Fiennes' presence, as the grown-up Michael, doesn't help much.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Stephen Daldry's film is sensitively realized and dramatically absorbing, but comes across as an essentially cerebral experience without gut impact.

TV Guide Jason Buchanan

Whether the source material or Hare's tinkering is to blame for the fact that the story keeps the viewer at arm's length, the end result is still the same: A film that's technically superb, yet still falls short of true greatness.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Can a formidable actress redeem a pile of solemn erotic kitsch? Kate Winslet answers that one as honestly as she can in the film version of Bernhard Schlink's 1995 novel "The Reader."

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

After a sensuous introductory act, The Reader descends into a series of dismaying contradictions regarding the moral toxins of the Holocaust - which still pollute postwar Germany.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

The Reader is ponderously self-important and smugly Socratic, brimming with unfinished sentences and pregnant pauses; if a single character would only say what he thinks, the movie would be over in 30 minutes

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

For those who think of cinema as dramatic roughage, The Reader should prove sufficiently indigestible.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

It appears that the filmmakers have taken Hannah Arendt's notion of the "banality of evil" way too literally.

Slate Dana Stevens

Slow-acting poison. For the first third of the movie, you'll experience a not-unpleasant tingling in the extremities, giving way to an encroaching torpor. An hour in, your pupils will have shrunk to pinholes, and by the time the closing credits roll, you'll be capable only of a dim longing for the defibrillation paddles. Who would have thought a movie about a beautiful, frequently naked female Nazi could be so dull?

Film Threat Matthew Sorrento

The shallowest "serious" film to be reeling this year.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 31 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Mark B. gave it a3:
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.

Hillary P. gave it a10:
To KL before ragging on this movie for the full frontal nudity of a teenager, maybe you should do some research, the "teenager" was born 7/90, making him 18 and of legal age of consent to film what ever he wants...so I urge you to judge the film on its actual content and not your uninformed opinion. This is fiction people!!

Frank O. gave it a10:
This is on my top 10 list for 2008 right now. I found it a beautiful and powerful movie. It's like two separate films in one, the first half a love affair while the 2nd half was a resolution to the impact of secrets among ourselves. I strongly recommend this film for any serious movie goer.

Judy W. gave it a10:
I loved the moral ambiguity. It is one of the most thought-provoking films I've seen in a long time and Kate Winslet is outstanding.

Billy S. gave it a9:
Above all, The Reader is a beautifully filmed love story and not the Holocaust movie that critics led me to believe it was. Kate Winslet is illuminous and heartbreaking as Anna, reminding me of Vanessa Redgrave as Julia, and if she gets a supporting actor nomination for this she will be the clear favorite. Ralph Feinnes is once again outstanding and deserves recognition but with In Bruges, The Duchess and The Reader he will slpit his own votes and go without again this year. Please give The Reader a chance, it's not Schindler's List or The Pianist, it is a love story for the ages!

Jeff H. gave it a9:
Wonderful movie with great acting.But isn't it illegal to show nude a 15-year old character even if the actor is over 18?

K L gave it a1:
There is a serious problem with this film. The first third of it includes graphic sex scenes between an adult and a teenager. And in this case, the actor portraying a teen is actually a teen. Since when is it legal to shoot full frontal nudity with kids??

Reader, The The Weinstein Company

Reader, The
The Weinstein Company