This film begins with a summer-long sexual relationship between a peculiar middle-aged man with emotional difficulties and a naïve fifteen year-old girl who is besotted with her first love. The relationship is entirely unequal, manipulative, and inappropriate. Moreover, the girl will suffer the mental and emotional impact of having been in this relationship for the rest of her life. Oh wait, I have the respective genders of the two protagonists the wrong way around! The relationship is, in fact, between an older woman and a teenage boy. And if you just felt a sense of relief at that last remark, then you help to prove my point that sex between men and minors provokes outrage, revulsion, and condemnation, whilst the reverse relationship is essentially considered acceptable and rarely questioned. Why is this?
Not that this question is the point of the film. Instead, this is a curious story in three acts told by way of reminiscences by the older version of the male character Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes). The first act details the initial love affair mentioned in the opening paragraph. Set in 1950s Germany, a chance encounter between Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet) and the younger Michael (David Kross) quickly becomes a romantic one, characterised by the cold and distant behaviour of Hanna and the adolescent emotional confusion of the lustful Michael. The other notable aspect of their time together is Hanna’s insistence that Michael reads aloud to her upon each occasion that they are together.
In the second act, Michael is now a law student in Berlin under the tutelage of a wise old professor (played by the ever dependable Bruno Ganz). In yet another twist of fate, the class is brought to watch a major trial in progress where, unknown to Michael beforehand, Hanna is one of the defendants. He is horrified at the atrocities that she is accused of, but suffers his anguish in silence and finds himself in a conflicted position at a critical stage in her evidence. The final act then follows their respective lives over the following three decades and neatly combines the strong and differing emotions surging through Michael with the enormity of the evil that Hanna has committed and how she now perceives herself as a person.
The film does feel very uneven in its presentation of these events though. For example, the relationship between Hanna and Michael is formed in an unconvincing and unseemly rush before the pace slows down completely in order to establish properly how headlong Michael falls in love with this difficult and unpleasant woman. Later on, the court case seems to open up a seriously interesting area of debate regarding show trials and how they act as scapegoats for society at large. However, no sooner has it been introduced, then the subject is left to wither on the vine and our attention is diverted elsewhere. Yet the film still manages to redeem itself once more with an effective exploration of love, personal growth, salvation, and forgiveness over its final third.
On the whole, so, this is a decent but not entirely satisfactory film from director Stephen Daldry. For me, it oscillated between being frustrating and incredulous, on the one hand, and reflective and poignant, on the other. Furthermore, its more allegorical aspects (it is based on a novel of the same name by German author Bernhard Schlink) are not particularly well communicated or framed from the outset. However, they do go a long way to explaining some of the more stilted scenes in the film. Whether the fault is with the screenplay or the production can be left open to debate, but there is a weakness here that lets the overall work down.
In terms of the acting, though, with his sad sunken eyes and boyish smile, Fiennes convinces as the middle-aged Michael still looking for emotional maturity in his life, whilst Winslet’s unnerving portrayal of Hanna successfully turns this character into an ordinary person that there is something not quite right about. Kross is also an actor to watch, as he does a fine job here of representing the different stages of maturity that his character goes through.
Finally, to finish with another cinematic bugbear of mine, why is Michael played by two different actors when Hanna is not? Or, to put this question more precisely, why are older female characters not usually played by similarly aged actresses?
Filed under: Cinema, Films, Movies | Tagged: Bernhard Schlink, Bruno Ganz, David Kross, Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, Stephen Daldry, The Reader
Yeah agree with you on focus- there are parts that excellent and others that I have difficulty remembering.
Ha- was wondering the same as you with the different actors for all of the others while they just aged Kate- thought they would have done the same for the lovely Alexandra Maria Lara but surprised when Lena Olin came out. Which reminds me as well that I thought the whole tying up sequence in NYC was a bit superfluous.
It is in the novel, to be fair. The dialogue in the film is a tad different from what I can remember, but the encounter does take place. I think that the point here is to do with the impossiblity of redemption for crimes of this nature. This lady’s reaction to what Michael says pours a torrent of icey cold water over the previous scenes.
My biggest problem with ageing younger actesses is that it detracts from watching the film. You are thinking about Kate Winslet looking a tad bizarre rather than staying involved in the story.
Thought it was in the novel but have been very negligent on my reading of late so didn’t read it first. Am sure the scene works in the book but it just felt hollow in the film. Yeah the aging does take away from the story since I would be looking for detail and not paying attention to what they were saying- like the fact that she was wearing contacts to make even her eyes look older!
As nasty as they looked, it had to be the feet reallly! Yikes!