Watch The Reader For Free

Sadly Over-hyped

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Absolutely amazing motion picture. This one will give you a flurry of emotions. Kate Winslet for sure did one of her career best acting in this movie. Her male counterpart did excel in his "kid" role. A must watch movie for all those who love meaningful drama.

As more and more people in modern society fail to clearly identify the difference between Love and Lust – it's little wonder there are so many poor marriages and divorce. 'The Reader' is yet another of the many, so-called 'romantic' movies, spinning yarns of the power of first 'love'. In this case, it's the love/lust between a 15yr old lad and a 36yr old woman named Hanna (Winslet). She, as it turns out was an SS guard in a Nazi death camp during WW11 – we all know this situation "she/they were just doing their job - like everyone else". This particular story begins more than a decade after her war service. Now she's working as a tram conductor and the lad, is a student whom she assists in the street - following his suffering a fever-induced vomiting session. She takes him to her apartment, cleans him up and then assists him back to his parent's home. He returns with flowers to thank her and before we know it she has her clothes off and heavily involved in instant seduction – better known as 'lust'.It's not always easy to figure just what screenwriter David Hare and director Stephen Daldry are wanting to highlight as the chief focus of their adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's novel (as it tended to be with this duo's earlier collaboration, 'The Hours' in '02). The first section concentrates too heavily on the sexual relationship - with over detailed sequences featuring heavy bouts of nudity and sexual experiments. Reviewer, Thelma Adams of the Huffington Post quite rightly identified these scenes as borderline child pornography (little more than abuse). This activity has been carefully set-up to be 'accepted' by the viewer as the 'norm' but, is it really quite so? Hanna is a troubled woman and often treats her 'Kid' harshly. Following their summer 'encounters', she eventually disappears and her 'kid' is left seriously distressed and confused.It's here, the movie shifts its tone to become an examination of a war crimes trial. More ambiguity within the writing surfaces - with what amounts to being heavy scrutiny of whether it's worse to publicly admit being 'illiterate' or someone who assisted with murdering hundreds of innocent people? The movie is well acted and slickly photographed yet, seems very long for its two-hour running time. While it obviously pleased the academy (it doesn't take much these days) and some audiences – it will, and has, left serious analytical thinkers unhappy with what they will clearly 'read' between the lines.

While taking a German course in undergrad, I read Bernhard Schlink's 1995 novel "Der Vorleser" (which more accurately translates to "the narrator"). I naturally thought that it would make an interesting movie. Sure enough, they eventually made one. It took me several years before I got around to seeing it, but now I have.The main gist of "The Reader" centers on the complexity of Hanna Schmitz as a person, but also on responsibility for one's actions. Hanna might have been merely a cog in the machine, but that doesn't excuse her deeds. Indeed, part of the purpose of writing the novel was so that Germany could collectively accept responsibility for its actions.Kate Winslet (who won a well deserved Oscar for the decidedly unglamorous role) portrays Hanna as a tragic figure, someone who might have not fully understood what she was doing but probably should have, and so she did eventually have to face the consequences. In the end, it doesn't matter whether or not Hanna understood what she was doing; she still made the choice to do it.Ralph Fiennes plays Hanna's paramour as an adult, doing what he can for her (while knowing full well what she did). Nonetheless, the movie belongs to Winslet. This is another masterpiece from Stephen Daldry, also the director of "Billy Elliot", "The Hours", and "Trash" (about some boys in Brazil's slums).

I have to say that this is one of those books that worked better—for me, at least—as a movie. As a book it just seemed a little lightweight, like a young adult book except you would need to remove all of the stuff about a 36 year old woman screwing a 15 year old kid's brains out.To me Hanna's illiteracy represents her absence of consciousness. A person who doesn't read is like a child unable to make proper decisions on morality and must simply follow orders whether they are given by the SS, whatever stupid religion you follow, or Donald Trump's minions in the White House. Trump is a great example of someone who doesn't read, who chooses not to read, which is worse than someone who can't read. At least Hanna knew that not reading was something shameful which is more than you can say about the 45th president of the most powerful country on earth. Trump represents the triumph (once again) of the stupid.The essence of the book lies here:"Did you not know that you were sending the prisoners to their death?""Yes, but the new ones came, and the old ones had to make room for the new ones.""So because you wanted to make room, you said you and you and you have to be sent back to be killed?"Hanna didn't understand what the presiding judge was getting at. "I . . . I mean . . . so what would you have done?" Hanna meant it as a serious question. She did not know what she should or could have done differently, and therefore wanted to hear from the judge, who seemed to know everything, what he would have done.This was curious because only a day later I read this in a letter from my brilliant younger brother: The problem with "people of faith" is their inability to accept the failure of their bad ideas, or to recognize when they're being bamboozled by those representing them. When you don't rely on a fact-based ethos, you tend to find yourself confused by outcomes that don't match the faith and fantasy.Of course, the Germans weren't illiterate, far from it, but they followed a dogma instead of making individual decisions and choices. It's hard work making your own choices which is why people find such comfort in religion and superstition and authority.