The Reader

I Love The Reader.

This is the best movie I've seen so far this year; even better than TCCOBB and SM. Stephen Daldry directed a mesmerisingly beautiful and tragic tale that left me with a heavy heart after I left the theatres. Stephen, who also directed The Hours, created a heartbreaking, and utterly poetic movie.

Kate Winslet plays Hannah Schwitz, who had a summer affair with 15 yr old Michael (David Kross). She awakened his sexual desires, while he reads to her. Several years later, Hannah was prosecuted for being a guard in a Jew concentration camp. Michael, now a lawyer undergrad, must come to terms with the secrets of their past, and the dilemmas of her actions.

In the reins of The Hours, The Reader is filled with swelling piano riffs, except this time the score is not by Philip Glass. It's littered with beautiful instances that might not say alot in terms of dialogue, but the acting and the scene will be magnificent enough just to observe. It's like seeing beauty, but cant quite put your hands on. It's a simple scene like a well-decorated jail cell, with pictures of flowers and handwritings; a scene of Hannah seeing a children's choir possibly for the first time, and crying at the beauty of it; it's hearing someone read to you, and feeling like everything in the whole world.


Kate Winslet. The hype is real. I had no qualms with the actress-or-supporting-actress dilemma, nor her naked, and not so perfect body. Her face says it all. Unlike the other 3 contenders whose movies I've seen (with the exception of Melissa Leo), there wasnt any breakout moment for the actress. But the kind of sadness you feel for her was similar to that when she told Jack not to let go in Titanic. It is hard to watch Kate without feeling for her character. She sucks you in that way.

David Kross was tremendously underrated amongst all the hype in my opinion. But I see the same actor-or-supporting-actor dilemma that might have limited his chances. Still, it was a brave performance (with full frontal nudity), and the transformation from youth to adult was significant. Ralph Fiennes, playing the middle aged Michael, didnt have much parts to shine, but he's got presence.

Lena Olin. I miss her since ALIAS went off-air. As always, one look from her is enough to create a genocide. That frame with just her staring back was very powerful. I'm glad she's retained that gumption in her.

This is not everyone's cup of tea. Some of the things are not blatent, and it might take a while before you get the meaning and plot (like how I did while chatting with Quin for a long while after our movie). It may even be ambiguous at parts, but give it a try and see, and you may just like it.






There was a drama queen in my theatre, who BAWLED during one of the scenes. I was thinking: "wa, i know sad la, but need to cry until like that meh?!" so i began to think of the following:
- maybe she is like one of the character
- maybe her bf sitting beside her dumped her in the theatres
- maybe her dog died
- maybe she's a Jew from one of the camps. like a really old caucasian auntie.
-maybe, just maybe, she REALLY REALLY felt Kate Winslet.

after the movie, me and Quin stayed behind, trying to find out who this person really is (they were the last to leave). She took out her comb after the movie and started combing her hair. Turns out to be this young girl that looked too pretty to even cry. Well, not that I have a grudge against young women who don't seem like they felt for the movie (who's to judge anyway), but just that she's not the kind who would cry over a movie with those bimbo shorts and hair!

ok. I'm getting offensive. Our speculations carried on from there to determine how much this couple truely love each other, which coincided with my Carrie-Bradshaw-sipping-coffee-and-writing moment this morning during breakfast: can we really tell just by looking, whether two person are in love, or trying to stay in love?

It led to my conclusion, that two person in a relationship who do not really love each other, is a more torturous situation than any singleton's fear of loneliness. In keeping up appearances, in playing mind games, in knowing that you are living in a lie, is possibly more bleak than being unwanted/not in love.

I love pensive Sundays. I'm keeping it that way. And Thom Yorke's The Eraser cannot be a better soundtrack.