A review on The Reader

http://www.orlandoweekly.com/film/review.asp?rid=14059
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Anglo actors who attempt to portray Germans tend to display all the verisimilitude of a season of Hogan’s Heroes, but Winslet has their cadences and mannerisms down cold (literally). Even when seducing Michael, she regards him with something between blithe contempt and mild reproach. Her only expressions of genuine joy are triggered not by his company per se, but by the content of whatever written passage reads to her at a given moment. Clearly, ideas and achievements mean more to her than people. Hmmm … wonder where she could have picked that up.

Still, The Reader has no real through line beyond the theoretical examinations of reformist zeal, casual denial and hypocritical scapegoating that it juggles somewhat successfully. Director Stephen Daldry (The Hours) and screenwriter David Hare adapt Bernhard Schlink’s novel into a shuffling, episodic entertainment that’s undermined by inconsistent casting. Kross’ Michael is destined to mature into a haunted adult played by Ralph Fiennes in the movie’s framing sequences, but the kid’s droopy bangs, liver lips and nonexistent chin make it more likely that he will end up hawking Macs on TV than starring in The English Patient.

The deficiency isn’t merely cosmetic. Though the power dynamic in the Michael-Hanna relationship is necessarily off, a movie like this demands that both parties be equally weighted dramatically. But Kross brings to the role nothing beyond what’s on the page, widening his eyes to each new heartbreak and orgasm as if he’s in a garden-variety coming-of-age story. Combine that with frequent lurches from one decade to the next and the movie’s only constant is free-floating guilt. And guilt isn’t much to hang a commitment on, even for two hours.