The Reader

Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes star in The Hours director Stephen Daldry's haunting period drama concerning the relationship between a 15-year-old German boy and a mysterious woman twice his age, and the way that it grows doubly complex when the man reencounters the woman years later and discovers a ...more

The Reader, by the same director (Stephen Daldry) and screenwriter (David Hare) who did The Hours, is one of those lovely but strictly no-laughs literary adaptations loaded with meaningful silences, unresolved moral dilemmas, and long, haunted stares. That's not to say the movie isn't grimly enjoyable, even if its tastefully trashy first half and its morosely serious second feel somewhat disjointed. Ralph Fiennes is Michael, a well-off but elegantly melancholy lawyer living alone in a starkly ...more

Completely riveting, yet about as emotionally distant as the chilly former concentration camp guard portrayed in the film by Kate Winslet, director Stephen Daldry's Oscar-bait follow up to his 2002 award winner, The Hours, stays coolly detached despite featuring some pretty steamy sex scenes and dealing with a highly confrontational subject matter. Still, emotional impact is admittedly not the be-all and end-all of a great film, and those in search of an absorbing, intellectually stimulating ...more

The Reader
Nominee - 81st Oscars®:
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role - Kate Winslet
Achievement in Cinematography
Achievement in Directing
Best Motion Picture of the Year
Adapted Screenplay