The Reader
15, Nationwide (2 January)
The Reader is based on the novel of the same name by Bernhard Schlink which, in turn, is one of those books that’s been read by about a zillion people in a billion countries proving that, sometimes, a great many people can be entirely wrong in all the languages you can think of. Only kidding. I haven’t actually read it. However, I did once try to read Paul Coelho’s The Alchemist, another of those books that’s been read by about a zillion people in a billion countries, and it was such twaddle it totally put me off books of this kind. Perhaps The Reader is a great book and perhaps I have made a big mistake but, judging by this film, I’m kind of thinking: nope, not missed anything here.
The screen version certainly arrives — ta-da! — with full-on A-list credentials: adapted by David Hare, directed by Stephen Daldry, starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes, who, I should quickly mention, basically because I feel like it, turns in a typically Fiennesian performance: that is, a parched one characterised by glassy eyes and lipless smiles. One day, I would like to get Ralph Fiennes extremely drunk at a party and then haul him up for the conga. It would do him good. Whatever, it’s a story told in three parts, cross-cutting through time and beginning in 1958 when 15-year-old Michael Berg (David Kross), who lives in Heidelberg, has a heady affair with the much older tram conductress Hanna Schmitz (Winslet) until she wordlessly skips town. Next, some years later, we get Michael (still Kross, but with sideburns) as a law student who, attending court one day, is horrified to see Hanna on the stand, refusing to apologise for once being a concentration camp guard and doing nothing to prevent 300 Jews from being burned alive.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in