THE READER – What Went Wrong?

The Reader, Stephen Daldry-Director, 2008

"Hooked on Phonics, Chapter One."

HOOK: Sex and the Holocaust

LINE:  “What does it matter what I’ve learned? The dead are still dead.”

SINKER: Did anybody here see Sophie’s Choice?

SPANKY: Some fine performances, especially Kate Winslet, but the question for audiences today is, “What’s in this for us?” Through a personal story that at first seems unrelated to the historic events that follow, Kate gives us a woman who is a little slow witted and disenfranchised. She longs for more, I guess, from a young boy. Only after her suicide does she get it. I hated the Lifetime Channel music and a sad-eyed Ralph Fiennes has pregnant pauses between his lines that would drive the Octo-Mom to drink. If this were a book, I wouldn’t read it.

“TWO PAWS DOWN” (1 BARK out of four)

JOHN: The movie is trying to do something. The introduction of the law professor to push some of the ethical questions, works, and I did associate with the young boy. Hanna frees him to join his peers (Is that symbolic of the past letting the present move forward?). And he redeems her by remembering her to his daughter. Her inability to read proves and interesting twist. But ultimately all of this all seems trivial compared to the enormity of the Holocaust. I visited Auschwitz in the sixties and the most amazing thing I remember was that when we asked directions about a mile away, the Germans acted like they didn’t have any idea what we were talking about.

GO GO (2 GOs out of four)