The film doesn't shove its message down your throat, and its prestige pic status belies its subtle intelligence.
1 Comment
12/11/08
The Reader (2008)
62
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:179
Fresh:111
Rotten:68
Average Rating:6.4/10
Consensus: Despite Kate Winslet's superb portrayal, The Reader suggests an emotionally distant, Oscar-baiting historical drama.
Theatrical Release:02-01-2009
Synopsis: Though THE READER may boast the typical pedigree of a Holocaust film--acclaimed actors, a literary source, and an Oscar-baiting end-of-the-year release date--this drama has a significant... [More]
Starring: Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, David Kross, Anthony Minghella
Director: Stephen Daldry
Reviews for The Reader
141 - 160 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
It is Winslet's haunting performance that gives the film what success it has.
12/11/08
Top CriticIntellectually scant, emotionally scant.
12/11/08
A titillating romance that suddenly morphs into a suspense-free courtroom drama, then trickles off in a wan coda of hand-wringing.
12/11/08
Winslet and Kross commit wholeheartedly to their roles, which require substantial nudity and piercing communication of self without the crutch of words. It's sharp work from the actors, who play into Daldry's slow-burn design of sorrow magnificently.
12/11/08
The Reader is low-budget, high-profile and beamed straight at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Category of High Moral Tone.
12/11/08
A young boy in post-war Germany has a torrid affair with an older woman, only to find out years later that she's a Nazi war criminal, in director Stephen Daldry's overwrought adaptation of the Bernhard Schlink novel.
12/10/08
[Winslet's] fierce, unerring portrayal goes beyond acting, becoming a provocation that will keep you up nights.
12/10/08
The Reader asks profound questions about guilt and redemption, but its answers are misguided and misleading.
12/10/08
By the time The Reader lays on Jewish guilt, the calculation of sex, morbidity and piety becomes risible if not offensive.
12/10/08
'Go to the theater if you want catharsis,' says one character. I was sitting in a theater and I wanted it. It wasn't there.
12/10/08
Provocatively intentioned, The Reader is a movie worth seeing -- the kind of film you'll think about for days afterward. But when all is said and done, you're likely to wonder why the impact wasn't greater still.
12/10/08
Literary adaptation tackles sex, shame, and guilt.
12/10/08
While The Reader could stand to be more lively and lived-in, it's nonetheless a supremely well-acted, gorgeously shot story that quietly dodges many of the common pitfalls of the Holocaust movie.
12/10/08
What was a literary exercise has become a virtuoso demonstration in shouted themes and chronological scrambling.
12/10/08
Everything is admirable, worthy, and muffled in a blanket of Britishness in this well-bred production, which reunites director Stephen Daldry with screenwriter David Hare six years after The Hours.
12/10/08
Though the sex is more vivid than the crimes or the soul-searching, portraying Germans who are neither ignorant nor psychopathic may help some learn from the past.
12/10/08
Gripping period drama centers on an upper-class Berlin teen's furtive affair with a sexy but coarse tram worker. The liaison serves as a launch pad for a unique examination of German post-Holocaust guilt.
12/10/08
Rather than an examination of what it means to discover a legacy of pain, The Reader serves merely, for a while, as a weirdly sexy depiction of statutory rape.
12/10/08
Writer David Hare and director Stephen Daldry don't seem particularly interested in the material; rather, the picture seems cranked out by a computer that has been programmed to make Oscar nominees.
12/09/08
Latest News for The Reader
April 13, 2009:
RT on DVD: Frank Miller Talks The Spirit, Michel Gondry Releases New Music Video DVD
It's a light week for home video entertainment, but never fear -- RT on DVD is here! We'll kick things off with the biggest title of the week: Frank Miller's The Spirit, which... More...
February 24, 2009:
Backstage at the Oscars: My First Time
In the movie world there is no event greater, no red carpet glitzier, no awards show more meaningful, than that of the Academy Awards. While millions watch the biggest night... More...
February 17, 2009:
RT Interview: Reading The Reader with Stephen Daldry
In bringing the best-selling German novel The Reader to the big screen, director Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Hours) had more than a few hurdles to overcome -- breaks in... More...
February 13, 2009:
Debating the Merits of The Reader
When you read the list of Best Picture nominations for this year's Academy Awards and saw "The Reader" nestled in between "Slumdog Millionare" and "Milk," were you surprised?... More...
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