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The Reader [Blu-ray] | ![The Reader [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Kbsw6t4xL._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Director: Stephen Daldry
Actors: Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, Matthias Habich, David Kross, Susanne Lothar
Studio: Weinstein Company
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.97
Buy New: $9.47
You Save: $10.50 (53%)
New (33) Used (13) from $7.73
Rating:  26 reviews
Sales Rank: 17063
Format: Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen
Languages: English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Dubbed)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: Blu-ray
Discs: 1
Running Time: 124 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 5.3 x 0.5
MPN: 796019819596
UPC: 796019819596
EAN: 0796019819596
ASIN: B001PPLJJ0
Theatrical Release Date: 2008
Release Date: April 28, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Studio: Genius Products Inc Release Date: 04/28/2009 Run time: 123 minutes Rating: R
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 26
 Little people personally involved in gigantic history May 25, 2010
Little Me (Katy, Texas, USA)
I've read the book. I've seen the movie. I liked both. Definitely 4 stars each.
The movie follows the book very closely. The acting is excellent, especially Kate Winslet as Hanna Schmitz. The directing and cinematography are top notch, and the locations are accurately portrayed with sets spanning the last five decades of the 20th century. The story takes place in German after WWII in the long dark shadow of the holocaust. A young man of late high school age, Michael, has a love affair with an older woman, Hanna, who was a prison guard during WWII. The first part of the movie is a coming-of-age story. The second part of the movie centers around Hanna's actions during WWII, her subsequent trial and imprisonment, and Michael's adult life. The story does have a significant twist, Hanna's illiteracy. It makes me wonder what her childhood was like, probably austere or even abusive, but neither the book nor the movie give us any hints in that regard.
My wife and I enjoyed the love story and found the social context and deeper moral conundrums very interesting. (The DVD extras and special features provide additional background material.) What at first seems to be a relatively simple story, contains several personal, emotional, and historical complexities. I think that's what they call "subtle." Here's another element that helps the film: The older Michael Berg played by Ralph Fiennes is a plausible representation of the younger Michael Berg played by David Kross. You can see the younger man in the older man's face. But the weight of his youth has turned his adult life into an abstraction. Hanna has spoiled him for all other women. He has become The Reader.
Near the end of the movie, Lena Olin does a masterful job of playing the last survivor of the church fire which resulted in the deaths of 300 Jewish prisoners. She's perceptive, wise, and self assured. Her performance gives the movie a small, but vital, degree of closure. The victim speaks. She's not a stodgy, old woman trying to remember the events of 50 years ago, but a sharp, insightful maven who knows a thing or two about suffering, human nature, and justice. Imagine the situation as it really was: smell the smoke, see the flames, feel the heat, hear the women and children screaming. Then comes the morning after. Silence. 300 people burned alive... a footnote to the immense history of Nazi Germany.
 RIVETING MOVIE May 23, 2010
Douglas Robinson (Tampa, Florida United States)
KATE WINSLET - she has never made a bad movie. She is the classic British actor, well trained who can portray any type of person. Other favourites of mine are "THE HOLIDAY" and "ENIGMA". The latter is a well done British WW11 story about breaking the German Codes.
Literacy and Other Barriers: Revisiting a Brilliant Film February 21, 2010
Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States)
THE READER in the form of Bernard Schlink's masterful book made an emotional impact on those who read it. And for once the book to film version holds nearly as much agony and beauty as the original. The screenplay is by David Hare (whose transformation of 'The Hours' was so worthy) and it captures not only the dialogue of Schlink's novel but fills in the silences with well-constructed added commentary. Stephen Daldry ('The Hours', 'Billy Elliot') directs with great sensitivity to not only the narrative story but to the myriad metaphors that fill the quiet spaces in both the novel and the film.
Michael Berg (David Kross, a significant discovery!) lives in Berlin, falls ill with Scarlet Fever, and is given shelter from the rain and cold by a stern appearing Hanna (Kate Winslet). When Michael recovers from his illness he returns to Hanna's flat to thank her for her kindness and there begins a strange and beautiful love affair between a virginal shy lad and an older but obviously emotionally flat yet needy woman. Despite Michael's family's disdain for his absences away from home, Michael surrenders himself to the passion of love and Hanna softens as she pleads for Michael to read to her. Reading and sex become exchanges for this rare couple until Hanna disappears. Michael discovers her some ears later when Hanna is on trial for war crimes (she had been a guard in the concentration camps). Hanna allows her guilt to override reality in confessing she had been the one who had written the orders for the extermination of Jews - this despite the fact that Hanna is illiterate, a fact known only to Michael.
While Hanna is imprisoned Michael (now Ralph Fiennes) records his reading of books to send to Hanna and during Hanna's twenty years of confinement she learns to read and write because of Michael's efforts and gifts. Once Hanna is scheduled to be released from prison and the prison matron convinces Michael to be in charge of the aging Hanna, the story takes turns and the ending is so gently painful that sharing it would ruin the impact for those who have neither read the book nor seen the film.
Winslet, Kross, and Fiennes are excellent in these very difficult roles. Their performances are enhanced with the supporting cast that includes special cameos by Lena Olin and Bruno Ganz and some other fine German actors. The mood of the film is gray except of the isolated moments of bliss Michael and Hanna share and the atmosphere is well balanced by the musical score of Nico Muhly. This is a film worth viewing repeatedly, there are that many layers of meaning to glean from this cinematic triumph. Grady Harp, February 10
 Another movie for the Oscars February 21, 2010
Voight Kampff (Vulcan, South Dakota)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Yes the acting in "The Reader" film is superb, the visual scenes perfected to a fault, the ability to expose the raw emotions of guilt and the need in trying to redeem oneself, are all here in this film, but for what purpose?
Is this film really trying to show a realistic side to Germany's past or just another movie trying to pull at our emotional strings in an attempt of grasping an Oscar?
I may seem cynical, but for me this film too readily glosses over the cruelty that some people perpetrated at this time. The repetitive scenes of perfect gray backgrounds endless shots of pouting by all the characters with somber music to assist in the mood and the classic film filler of smoking a cigarette for dramatic effect of deep contemplation (Freud would say of guilty sexual pleasures) is too scripted for my pallet.
I can understand that many people will find this film a profound revelation and/or even a classic representation of flawless acting that achieves a balance of realism seldom found in the Hollywood movie industry.
For me however, it loses purpose, by not exposing the ugly side of human nature for which we are all vulnerable to regardless of nationality, faith, or moral upbringing.
The film is too self absorbed into the characters of Hanna and Michael's feeling of guilt and shame which makes them come across somewhat pathetic and bland. It overindulges in trying to have us feel sympathetic to the characters plights.
Like most people if you like soap operas you will probably love this movie. If not, you may find this film a bit staged and historically compromised to appease the Oscar Gods.
Wonderfully Depressing February 3, 2010
A. L. Haskett (Los Angeles)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
There are films I resist watching because of the subject matter. This was one. But when I finally screened it, I was enthralled. Beautifully acted and thought provoking, The Reader presents an unusual perspective on a horrific time in history.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 26
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