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Drama, Romance 124 min R
Rotten Tomatoes63%Metacritic58IMDb
Behind the mystery lies a truth that will make you question everything you know.
The story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a teenager in the late 1950s, had an affair with an older woman, Hanna, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. He alone realizes that Hanna is illiterate and may be concealing that fact at the expense of her freedom.
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Contemplative, prestige, overwhelming and bleak.
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Written by TMDB members; each links to the original. Not part of Taste Buds's numbers.
David Kross is really effective in this tale of a young boy ("Michael") who encounters "Hanna" (Kate Winslet) as he shelters in her doorway from a rainstorm. In fairly short order, this fifteen year old boy becomes her lover; in return she gets him to read to her. He is soon infatuated and devastated when he turns up at her apartment one day to find her gone. Skip on thirty years or so and he - now Ralph Fiennes - takes over a retrospective of her story as we discover she was tried for being a particularly nasty Nazi prison camp guard and she is sentenced to life imprisonment. Throughout her internment, the two continued to correspond - he would send her tapes to aid in her learning to read... Stephen Daldry has created a delicate masterpiece here, I think. Winslet is very much on form as the story goes from a bit of sexual fantasy for the young man, through to a far darker, more horrific, second part. There is something unnervingly natural about Winslet's performance; from the playful and generous - though temperamental - lover for this naive young boy, then the odious and distinctly unrepentant, almost belligerent, woman at her trial. Despite that, somehow, Daldry manages to elic
Read the whole review on TMDBI didn't turn this movie off after the beautiful sex scenes only because two others were watching it with me. The mere fact that "Germans" were speaking English totally destroyed the whole "suspend disbelief" for me. This film is an awful rendition by Brits of an award-winning German book. Perhaps, only someone from the Nachgeborenen (to coin Bertolt Brecht's meaning of German post-Holocaust generations) should have made this film. The two stars are for Winslet and Kross. The rest sucks.
Read the whole review on TMDBThe Reader blends a controversial romance with post-war German guilt, presenting a layered, emotional story carried by powerful performances and thoughtful direction. Despite some logical gaps, the film succeeds in portraying personal and societal struggles through its characters' trauma and secrets. It’s a compelling watch for those drawn to slow-burning dramas with moral complexity. Read the full review here: (Indonesian version : alunauwie.com) and (English version : uwiepuspita.com)
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Closest on the same fourteen dimensions, from everything scored on Taste Buds. Other media included when they land close.
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“Is The Reader emotionally manipulative?”
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