| | | |How Far Would You Go to Protect a Secret?
Features: DVD
"...[Daldry] proves himself the screen's reigning master at showing passion thwarted or repressed." Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer
"An engaging period drama." Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter
"An immaculately crafted, splendidly acted drama with a message at its core of forgiveness and humanity." Marc Mohan, Portland Oregonian
"Fiennes brings to the role a shimmering subtlety." Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor
"Winslet's fierce, unerring portrayal goes beyond acting, becoming a provocation that will keep you up nights." Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
Editor's Note
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 difference: it focuses on a perpetrator, rather than the victims. Kate Winslet takes on the hefty supporting role of Hanna Schmitz, a woman who has an affair with Michael Berg (German actor David Kross), a 15-year-old boy in 1950s Germany. They spend their brief romance alternately making love and focusing on literature, with Michael reading everything from Chekov to Homer to his lover. Soon, Hanna abruptly disappears, and Michael returns to his normal life. Almost a decade later, Michael is studying law, when he sees Hanna again; she is on trial for her crimes as an S.S. guard during the war. Michael is torn between a desire for justice and his knowledge of a secret that may save Hanna.THE READER makes full use of hindsight and historical perspective. Based on the bestselling novel by Bernhard Schlink, the story is framed by an older Michael (Ralph Fiennes) who deals with both his personal history and the collective past--and guilt--of the German people. This is a complex film that doesn't give the audience any easy answers; Hanna is undoubtedly guilty of horrific crimes, but she is a multilayered character who is always fascinating and always human, thanks to the terrific performance of Winslet, who plays Hanna over four decades. Director Stephen Daldry earned an Oscar nomination for his work on another literary adaptation, THE HOURS, and he deserves more praise for this polished film.
| Features | Audio: English Dolby Digital | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: Spanish |
| Entertainment Reviews
 | The Reader - DVD Review By: Sean O'Connell - filmcritic.com DVD Reviews Published on: 4/3/2009 5:36 PM | |
Reader reunites Daldry with his The Hours screenwriter, David Hare, and the two collaborate on another aloof, literary period picture. The action transitions between 1995 and 1958, when 15-year-old Michael Berg (David Kross) first comes under the spell of Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), the stern but attentive woman who paid him a bit of kindness after the boy was felled by Scarlet Fever. Their kinky relationship is fueled by carnal and intellectual curiosity....read the full review |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: WEINSTEIN COMPANY |
| Release Date: 9/15/2009 |
| Running Time: 124 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2008 | | Catalog ID: 1000397 | | UPC: 00796019819572 |
Audio & Video
| | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Oscar (2009) | | | Anthony Minghella, et. al., Nominee, Best Motion Picture of the Year | |
British Academy Awards (2009) | | | Anthony Minghella, et. al., Nominee, Best Film | |
Oscar (2009) | | | Chris Menges, Roger Deakins, Nominee, Best Achievement in Cinematography | | | David Hare, Nominee, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published | |
Golden Globe (2009) | | | David Hare, Nominee, Best Screenplay - Motion Picture | |
Screen Actors Guild (2009) |  | Kate Winslet, Winner, Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role | |
British Academy Awards (2009) | | Kate Winslet, Winner, Best Leading Actress | |
Oscar (2009) | | | Kate Winslet, Nominee, Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role | |
Golden Globe (2009) | | Kate Winslet, Winner, Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture | | | Stephen Daldry, Nominee, Best Director - Motion Picture | |
Oscar (2009) | | | Stephen Daldry, Nominee, Best Achievement in Directing | |
Golden Globe (2009) | | | The Reader, Nominee, Best Motion Picture - Drama |
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| | Professional Reviews | Rolling Stone
3 stars out of 4 -- "[Winslet's] fierce, unerring portrayal goes beyond acting, becoming a provocation that will keep you up nights." 01/08/2008 p.120Entertainment Weekly
"The film is notable for its nice performances, its handsome photography, and its very active music." 12/19/2008 p.43 Total Film
4 stars out of 5 -- "[C]onsidered, articulate, intelligent....Winslet's precise performance is matched every way by Kross, an 18-year-old German actor who manages to convey love, lust and torment with barely a twitch of his fresh, open face." 01/01/2009 p.52 Chicago Sun-Times
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "Powerfully acted by Winslet and Kross, with Ralph Fiennes coldly enigmatic as the elder Michael." 12/23/2008 Box Office
"Young Kross impresses with his acting ability. He's able to register multiple emotions and thoughts -- some that are complicated, especially during the trial scenes in the film's middle stretch..." 12/10/2008 Empire
3 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he performances are outstanding and the subject matter demands respect....Winslet especially brings a great deal to a challenging role..." 02/01/2009 Washington Post
"Bernhard Schlink's highly regarded novel THE READER receives a graceful, absorbing screen adaptation by director Stephen Daldry, who conveys a technically and morally complicated story with consummate skill and smoothness." 12/25/2008 ReelViews 8 of 10
The Reader is closer to a near miss than a rousing success but, on balance, this is still worth seeing for those who enjoy complexity and moral ambiguity within the context of a melodrama. Based on the novel by Bernhard Schlink, the film asks big questions about the nature of evil and how sin, like disease, can be contagious. And, while not making excuses for those who participated in the Holocaust, The Reader becomes the latest Nazi-related motion picture to question whether redemption is an option or a possibility for someone who has committed monstrous acts...For the most part, the movie is a faithful adaptation of the book when it comes to large plot points, but the devil is in the details. Subtleties and nuances that exist in the novel and which can be presented in the first-person narrative are missing from the more straightforward movie...In one sense, The Reader is as difficult a film as The Boy in the Striped Pajamas in that both films show how the horror of Auschwitz was hidden behind a curtain of ordinariness. At one point during The Reader, one character condemns not only the likes of Hanna but the whole of the previous generation of Germans for their willful ignorance of what was happening to the Jews. This question of responsibility and culpability has left a deep scar on the collective German consciousness that even now has not healed, and there are indications of it spread throughout The Reader. So, although Stephen Daldry's (Billy Elliot) film falls short of the greatness for which it strives, it is nevertheless a workmanlike adaptation. And there is enough intelligent, compelling material here to make it worthwhile as a meditation about the post-World War II implications of the Holocaust upon the German psyche and as the tale of the tragedy suffered by one man because, at a vulnerable time of his life, he fell in love with the wrong person. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 9 of 10
The crucial decision in "The Reader" is made by a 24-year-old youth, who has information that might help a woman about to be sentenced to life in prison, but withholds it. He is ashamed to reveal his affair with this woman. By making this decision, he shifts the film's focus from the subject of German guilt about the Holocaust and turns it on the human race in general. The film intends his decision as the key to its meaning, but most viewers may conclude that "The Reader" is only about the Nazis' crimes and the response to them by post-war German generations...The film centers on a sexual relationship between Hanna (Kate Winslet), a woman in her mid-30s, and Michael (David Kross), a boy of 15. That such things are wrong is beside the point; they happen, and the story is about how it connected with her earlier life and his later one. It is powerfully, if sometimes confusingly, told in a flashback framework and powerfully acted by Winslet and Kross, with Ralph Fiennes coldly enigmatic as the elder Michael...Many of the critics of "The Reader" seem to believe it is all about Hanna's shameful secret. No, not her past as a Nazi guard. The earlier secret that she essentially became a guard to conceal. Others think the movie is an excuse for soft-core porn disguised as a sermon. Still others say it asks us to pity Hanna. Some complain we don't need yet another "Holocaust movie." None of them think the movie may have anything to say about them. I believe the movie may be demonstrating a fact of human nature: Most people, most of the time, all over the world, choose to go along. We vote with the tribe...Philip Roth's great novel The Plot Against America imagines a Nazi takeover here. It is painfully thought-provoking and probably not unfair. "The Reader" suggests that many people are like Michael and Hanna, and possess secrets that we would do shameful things to conceal. - Roger Ebert
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