Have you ever had a secret that you felt compelled to keep? Has guilt ever been an overwhelming demon stabbing you from within?
Secrets and guilt fuel and drive the main characters in Bernhard Schlink's best-selling novel-turned-film The Reader.
Set in post WWII Germany this film, directed by Stephen Daldry (The Hours), is a captured moment framed by German war guilt. Mixed with love and lies, the dismal feeling of a haunting past is brought to life through a series of secrets that change and chart the course of two lives forever.The story begins in Germany, 1958, where Hanna Smitz, played by Kate Winslet, and 15-year-old Michael Berg, played by David Kross and Ralph Finnes (adult Michael), get caught up in an affair that will last a lifetime. Though the physical nature of their relationship lingers only for one memorable summer, their lives remained inevitably intertwined.
Hanna, a simple and plain woman living on her own, finds Michael outside of her building, sick and helpless. She comes to his aid, ensuring that he arrives home safely, and during which captures the young and impressionable boy with her womanly, yet slightly stifled, beauty.
When Michael returns, flowers in hand, to thank Hanna for her kindness, they are soon swept into a passionate affair that borders on uncomfortable. Though much of their relationship seems to be centered on sex, Hanna has Michael read to her, a touching yet slightly strange ritual that becomes the theme of the entire movie.
Their relationship never develops beyond the walls of Hanna’s apartment. Secrecy shrouds their courtship as neither divulges to anyone what they have come to feel for one another. As well their lives, beyond what they have developed together, have remained secret to one another, something Michael brings to light more than once in the first half of the film.
Though it appears that they are in love, everything comes to a grinding halt when Hanna suddenly leaves town, and leaves behind Michael’s broken heart.
Flash-forward--- Michael has grown into a young law student. He has been assigned the task of attending a war tribunal in relation to six female guards that are standing trial for crimes committed while working at Nazi a concentration camp.
Though Michael and his classmates are meant to ponder the ideas of justice, and to see the difference between what is law and what is moral, he is laden with another emotion. During his first visit to the courthouse Michael realizes that his first love, Hanna, is standing with the defendants, awaiting the verdict.
Hit with the truth that had, until that very moment, remained Hanna’s secret, Michael is troubled by a love tainted by war. What was once pure and exciting had become part of the desolate past facing generations of Germany yet to come.
If you can get past the first 45 minutes of Kate Winslet nudity, the rest of the film is saturated with thought provoking metaphors, dialogue, and plot.
The idea of secrecy runs throughout the entire film, weaving together a convoluted web of deceit, that if spoken aloud may have changed the course of the lives that Hanna Smitz and Michael Berg came to live.
The question of whether keeping secrets is noble or perverse is presented to the viewer on more than one occasion. This is meant to leave you wondering whether it is better to seclude information and in turn seclude oneself, or face the consequences of disclosing the secret.
Aside from her naked body, Winslet brings to the screen a well-crafted character that you will both love and hate in equal amounts. Her performance is the best I have seen from her, and should she win is certainly worthy of the Oscar for which she is nominated.
Though the film left me thinking about a great many things, at the forefront is the idea that secrets, if left for too long, can eat you from the inside out.
I am rating this movie a 3.5/5 Light Bulbs. I would have given it more if I didn’t have to stare Winslet’s high beams for so long.
Parental Note: This movie contains many scenes of nudity, along with varying depictions of sexual situations.
** Photo courtesy www.telegraph.co.uk
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