Movie Review: Powerful performances make 'Reader' memorable

Based on the novel by Bernhard Schlink, director Stephen Daldry's latest film is a case study in how life decisions can have long-lasting, far-reaching consequences. Indeed, choices a person makes in his or her youth may shape not only their lives but many others', and do so for years to come.

"The Reader," playing at Moxie Cinema, features powerful performances by veteran Ralph Fiennes, newcomer (to American audiences) David Kross and especially Kate Winslet. Winslet has been nominated for five Oscars in a big-screen career dating back to 1994. She made a big splash (so to speak) in "Titanic" and was memorable in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." At 33, she's kicked her already laudable credentials up a notch with her portrayal of Hanna Schmitz, a tram conductor in post-World War II Berlin who harbors at least two haunting secrets about her past (and indeed, her present).

"The Reader" opens in 1995 Berlin, where attorney Michael Berg is making breakfast for a woman with whom he's had a one-night stand. This kindness is in marked contrast to his rather cold and distant demeanor.

The film then tells - in flashbacks to 1958 and 1966 - the events that shaped Berg's life and the decisions he and Fraulein Schmitz made during the two times their paths crossed.

When we see the young Michael at 15, he is feverishly running through the streets of Berlin. He stops to vomit in an apartment house entrance and immediately, seemingly out of nowhere, Hanna appears. First she washes the sidewalk, then she orders Michael to her apartment where she cleans him up and escorts him home. Hanna seems very adept at giving orders.

Three months and a bout of scarlet fever later, Michael returns to the woman's apartment to thank her. This is to be a monumental encounter for them both. At 15, the boy loses his virginity to Hanna, who is still quite a bonnie Fraulein, if more than twice his age. Afterward, she asks (commands is more like it) Michael - whom she simply calls "kid" - to read to her. This becomes a ritual. Many people enjoy hearing someone read to them, but the look in Hanna's eyes hints at something more. Their affair lasts three months. Michael is smitten and Hanna remains aloof, but it's clear she enjoys the sex - and the reading.

When it's announced she will be getting a promotion, kicked up to an "office job" with the tram company, she panics. The next time Michael comes to the apartment, every trace of Hanna is gone.

Jump ahead to 1966. Michael is in law school. His professor (played by Bruno Ganz) arranges for a small group of students to attend a war crimes trial. Six women, all of them had been guards at Auschwitz and later a smaller, women-only prison camp, are on trial. One of the women is Fraulein Schmitz. Michael is horrified but still feels a strong attachment to his first love.

Unlike the other five women on trial who deny everything, Hanna very pragmatically tells the court she joined the SS willingly. It was a good job, and she was a loyal German. She asks the members of the court what they would have done. The crux of the trial concerns an incident in which 300 women and children were left locked inside a burning building after an Allied air raid. The others on trial say it was Schmitz who was in command and, indeed, the one who wrote the official report. Michael knows this is impossible, but when Hanna fails to speak in her own defense, he decides it's not his place to tell the court why she could not have been the author of said report.

Hanna is sentenced to life in prison, and after many years, Michael decides he must do something for her. He begins rereading her favorite books into a tape recorder and sends the tapes to her in prison. It's a life-changing act for both of them.

After 20 years in prison, Hanna is due for parole, and since she has no family and no friends, officials contact Michael - the only person to have contacted her during her imprisonment. He agrees to find her a job and an apartment and the two speak face-to-face for the first time in many years.

What ensues is a tragic finale.

"The Reader" is quite moving and is much different from the usual "remembering the Holocaust" films, inasmuch it's told from the viewpoint of a guard and an ordinary German citizen whose generation is finally coming to terms with the horrors committed by their parents' generation in WWII.

Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield freelance writer and musician. He can be reached at info@wunderlesound.com.[[In-content Ad]]