The Reader- A Review

I must admit beforehand that my teenage proclivities (read prurient interest!) hasn't really deserted me and whenever I come across a Kate Winslet movie, my motivations for watching it aren't always movie related! In fact, she herself has recently stated that she would no longer be doing nude scenes as she doesn't want to be known as the actress who gets out of her kitty so often. But before that happens, The Reader is an absolute paisa vasool - that is, even if you don't understand the movie, you'll still have something to look forward to!

But coming back to the topic, The Reader is quite a complex movie. One can call it a romantic-drama but there are other complexities that make an interpretation of this work difficult.

At the heart of these complexities is the protagonist Hanna Schmitz played by Kate Winslet. She lives in her own world and own interpretations of various things around her. She has a secret which she has managed to hide throughout her professional career. This secret affects a lot of things- including her romantic liaisons and her ignoring inhuman and dastardly ideologies and practices.

A few other undertones are also present. Notably, the fact the people get attracted to those who seem to have what they themselves cannot have. This possibly explains 36 year old Hanna's affair with the 15 year Michael, a student who can read! Although this decision, along with the other decisions she takes in her life, isn’t the best one- the poor introverted lad remains pained for the rest of his life.

Perhaps that is what this fast paced and nicely edited movie intends to convey. That while this character is indeed flawed; but so are life's most general characters which possibly explains the collective madness people in different times and different places seem to go through. Although such characters may not deserve sympathy per se, they still deserve simply by virtue of their being human beings. Milgram experiment and ‘Banality of Evil’ also point in the same direction.

And for the actors, it is actually the 18 year old David Kross, playing Kate Winslet’s young lover Michael Berg, who steals the show and impresses one the most. Incidentally, Kross looks a cross between Keaneu Reeves and Heath Ledger. As for Kate Winslet, I’m not sure what the various judges saw in her (pun intended!) to hand over so many awards!