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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with DAN CARRIER
Published: 30 December 2008

Kate Winslet in The Reader

Winsome take on
a war criminal

THE READER
Directed by Stephen Daldry
Certificate 15

IT is hard to conjure up the emotions this film requests: the lead, a former SS camp guard, is essentially a monstrous criminal so having Kate Winslet play an occasionally winsome main character means you will hold your nose during this drawn-out saga.
Hanna Schmitz (Winslet, above) is a tram conductor in a small German town with a secret history. She was a member of the SS and a camp guard. It is 10 years after the war has finished and as we meet Hanna she embarks on a steamy affair with a teenager called Michael.
But she harbours a dark secret about her Nazi past. It’s 1958 and the scars are still raw.
Then fast-forward to 1966 when she is being brought before a court to be tried for her role in the war. Watching her being tried is her former lover, now a law student, who holds a secret that could help her should he let it be known...
And the gentle pace of the action also does not help. You’ll be urging the characters to jolly along a little in the dull parts, which means the director has lost you. This is, of course, about a subject where the need to jolly things along is quite unacceptable.The themes of German guilt are not wholly explored and there is also the cloud of moral ambiguity hanging over this whole thing.
At the end of the day it’s hard to feel any sympathy for the lead role as, let’s face it, she was a vile war criminal.
Yet under Stephen Daldry’s careful direction, Winslet does a grand job. It is a hard role, to be the young woman, the prisoner and then the convict, and the story line is complicated but overall well done. Still, it’s hardly uplifting fare.

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