The little prolific Stephen Daldry treasured, a priori, interesting qualities to bring to the screen 'The Reader' ('The Reader'), the adaptation of the successful novel of the same name by Bernhard Schlink. After his good work with 'The Hours', Daldry had a complicated task ahead of him, but for this, he had a very faithful script to the original and a huge actress, in a state of inspiration, so as not to ruin this complex story.
His result is remarkable as a whole, although perhaps there remains a slight feeling of not having gotten the most out of the excellent material from which he started. However, despite this slight appreciation, Daldry's work deserves praise for its realization, which addresses such delicate and deep issues as redemption, guilt, and other moral dilemmas that manage to move with this new story that hovers over the Jewish holocaust.
The story of a young adolescent in post-war Germany who is driven to carnal love by a distant and dispassionate woman, who is separated by many years (he is fifteen and she is thirty-six) and the tragic and profound consequences that in his life will entail, is the center of 'The reader'. In the first part, Daldry finds his best realization to portray that vital experience, with a cold but resounding eroticism, between Hanna Schmitz and the confused and enormously grateful young Michael Berg, captured by a fascinating, to some extent inappropriate, but stimulating relationship of bed (and bathtub). There, between sheets and foam baths, is where we get to know Hanna's coldness, more interest in letters, and Michael and his full dedication. Exchanges of readings and routine S- in small but intense moments will unleash within her the flame of lasting love and which will change the course of her life forever and irremediably.
In the second part of the film and after the escape of the mysterious and unknown Hanna, the reunion exposes new perspectives. In a scenario (the Auschwitz trials) and circumstances that pose a complex moral dilemma, full of deep bitterness that will have to live with the sweetness of memory. Here is born an ambiguity that takes special prominence. For him with a bitter existence and for her with a feeling of guilt and shame. Both become prisoners of loneliness, of traumas that are difficult to heal, and where Daldry strives to overemphasize, despite firmly resolving the chapters of the past combined with the present.
It is in its final third, in which Ralph Fiennes gives life to the tormented Michael, that it is most cold and where the deep and absorbing drama of the beginning becomes more distant and confused. The approach to contradictory emotions and their consequences leads him to create less brilliant and intense situations and encounters between the protagonists, in which he seems to strive more to reiterate the feelings already exposed than to offer a progression, a logical continuity, and above all a clarity that justifies the events. Even so, the difficulty of the proposed themes is high, and resolving that ambiguity, a supposed redemption, the feeling of guilt, and the moral dilemma are especially complex. What does not mean, I repeat, that the intensity exposed at the start is lost towards the end?
'The Reader' is a very European film, elegant in its staging, with a remarkable soundtrack, and in which the sublime performance of Kate Winslet cannot be overlooked (well above the mediocre makeup she wears). A character interpreted to perfection, with a marked German accent who portrays with enormous credibility that anguished, desperate woman with a shell that prevents her from reaching repentance and assimilating the enormity of her crime. However, despite Winslet's enormous brilliance, she cannot ignore the good work of the young David Kross and, to a lesser extent, that of Ralph Fiennes. Daldry returns with another story in which he demonstrates his indisputable ability to explore feelings and signs a tape for brilliant moments, which allows the special showcasing of his leading actress.
