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Schoolboy Crushed

In Berlin, in the mid 50s, fifteen-year-old Michael Berg and thirty-something Hanna Schmitz meet-cute when she finds him vomiting from Scarlet Fever outside her apartment. She walks him home where he spends several months in recovery. Once he's well enough, he brings flowers to her door as a "thank you". Almost immediately, one thing leads to another and they begin a series of what would surely have been labeled "booty calls" had the term existed back then. Many of the early scenes in "The Reader", director Stephen Daldry's overwrought adaptation of the Bernhard Schlink novel, feature Michael and Hanna in various states of undress. Hanna is most comfortable when she's calling the shots; she decides when they will make love and when Michael will read books aloud. It seems Hanna is enraptured by having books read to hear, and Michael is only too happy to oblige.

Eventually, as is wont to happen, a young boy's fancy turns to kids his own age, and Michael begins to make other friends at school. After a particularly melodramatic break-up, Hanna disappears; Michael finds her apartment empty. Eight years later, Michael's law school class is sent to observe Nazi war crime trials and, wouldn't you know it, Hanna is one of the defendants in a particularly gruesome case. As a result of this plot point, the term "holocaust movie" will likely be applied here, but "The Reader" plays down this aspect of the story using it as a "reveal" later in the film. It might have been more effective had the film committed to its subject rather than treating it as a "twist".

Despite the "wow, small world!" contrivance at the heart of the film, there's an interesting story here. It's no wonder Mr. Schlink's novel became such a best-seller. On screen, however, something is missing. It's as if all the pieces are in place for a time-tripping unrequited love story, but nothing fits as it should.

The actors, though clearly up to the task, seem to go through the motions. Any emotion is smothered by the plot machinations. Michael (played in his youth by David Kross) looks like a young Heath Ledger, and he eventually grows up to look exactly like Ralph Fiennes (who plays him in later years). Though Mr. Kross and Mr. Fiennes bear little resemblance, they each wear the same hangdog look of carnal despair. Kate Winslet, for her part, plays Hanna as a steel trap. She's as fastidious with her heart as she is with her bathing rituals; nothing will touch her. Over the years, she becomes a study in repression, nearly quaking with submerged pain. And age she must, with varying degrees of success, thanks to some underwhelming make-up.

When Michael and Hanna meet again later in life… almost nothing happens. There's a surprising lack of dialogue or action between the two characters. It's as if the filmmakers are counting on the audience to supply the necessary emotion for the moment. Well, that and the insistent Nico Muhly score which accompanies nearly every scene like a reminder that this is an "important" film.

Far be it for me to dislike a movie in which Kate Winslet appears so steadfastly naked. And yet, I must. Mr. Daldry and the screenwriter David Hare did some wonderful work together on 2002's "The Hours", but here they fail to earn the gravitas that they seem to think comes out-of-the-box with the rest of the story. At one crucial moment, the characters both make a decision that condemns them (and the audience) to their fate. But the decision is unmotivated. Is it pride? Or is it just the more effective dramatic turn for the plot?

It's also interesting to note that there's a strange bit of cognitive dissonance that occurs in "The Reader". Since so much of the film revolves around language (in books, in letters), it's distracting to have English spoken and written throughout (naturally, everyone speaks with varying proper accents) when the setting is so insistently German. This film might have been served better if it were filmed in its native language. Or, perhaps, simply read.