Christmas in Los Angeles

MERRY CHRISTMAS, Y'ALL.
Over the next few days I'll be posting all sorts of crap, mostly short reviews of the Oscar runners which are in the cinemas right now.





NEED I SAY ANYMORE?

The Reader

Saw THE READER tonight at a BAFTA screening at the LANDMARK.

Stephen Daldry the director was there for Q&A afterwards.

The reviews are all over the board about this. It's easy to be cynical about YET another Holocaust movie. But this is less about the actual war wrongdoings, than more about the after effects and the numbing of a second generation unable to broach the subject with the former generation. Screenplay by David Hare - sparse, practical, elusive - leaves the actors with a lot of work to do, and a lot of unanswered questions and raggy dilemmas. Which of course is the way that Germans felt/feel about WW2. The film is never anything less than fully engrossing - Winslett is great once you get over the "Ve Have Vays of making you talk" accent. The clever thing is that they have cast predominantly German actors speaking English throughout, so she slips right in after the first few minutes. The central dramatic core of the file is riveting, troubling, and I was completely hooked. It's uncomfortable to extend empathy to a Nazi worker who worked openly in the death camps - but you do. And that troubling feeling is why you see this very good movie. There is a plot point later in the film that needed far more fleshing out than it got (and it's the pivotal moment of the film) - when Michael makes a strange choice that has a life changing effect on Hanna - however, the movie's point of view never fully supports or hints at an explanation for that decision - and it's problematic to the overall reading of the film. I feel they could have solved it very easily with an extra plot point or two.  Interesting that Winslett has chosen two deeply flawed and tragic characters this Oscar season (Revolutionary Road is the other one), and I suspect both will cancel each other out when it comes to the handing out of awards.

Ratings out of 10: Screenplay - 8; overall - 7