Reviews

The thing that above all else singles us out from other species is our empathy, our sympathy, our ability to help, to sort things out. A pair of albatrosses may mate for life, and even show signs of real affection for each other. But if one of them breaks its wing, there is little the other can do except watch its partner die an agonising death. Nature is utterly indifferent to hurt, trauma, whatever. However beautiful that nature is, it is completely unengaged in the fate of its denizens. Here we have a posh family arriving in the Scilly Isles in November, taking up residence in a presumably familiar environment. They are going to paint and enjoy some well-cooked food served up by an employee, a girl from Hertfordshire. They will be joined by somebody else, who we have to assume is the father, though we are never told this explicitly – and needless to say, he never arrives (Is that a spoiler? How can you spoil a film like this?). And we know that, like Godot, he is never going to arrive.

One of the deeply annoying things about this film is that we discover nothing much about the family – their history, their background, where they come from, whether there are other siblings. We learn a few things about the son – he is doing some sort of volunteer work in Africa, related to Aids. His sister who is in unspecified full-time employment, disapproves of his life choices. He has a girlfriend (not present) whom, bizarrely, he is only going to see once in the next year because she is not allowed to join him in Africa. Of the mother we know nothing, her existence is totally wrapped up in her neurosis about her (presumably) dying marriage. Clearly there is conflict in this family, at odds with the vacuous serenity of their surroundings. There is another player in this bleak tableau, a pretentious professional painter who is tutoring members of the family. He is perhaps the most annoying character of them all, spouting painterly platitudes, being embarrassed by the gaping wound that is the dysfunctional family, ultimately unable to help, just observe in a state of boredom (like us the viewers). Painters should keep their mouths shut.

Now I love the Scilly Isles. But the Scilly Isles in the off season? Really? When you are already traumatised, upset, depressed, bored? What a monumentally bad choice of a venue for a damaged family to take a holiday.

The dialogue and acting are extremely naturalistic, we could be earwigging on an actual event. This could be a documentary, so utterly real and pedestrian is the conversation and activity. Hence the three stars I have awarded it. We are observing and listening to something deeply uninteresting, the interaction between real other people we neither know nor like. I'm now thinking that perhaps the painter is a real-life painter, in which case I withdraw my earlier comments. His paintings actually look good if they are real.

But back to our characters. We don't even get to see them in close-up until the end. All we are given is the beauty of Tresco, with its windswept alien plant life.

I watched to the bitter end, because I was expecting a caped crusader to come flying through the window with a laser gun. Or the cook to use her set of knives to good purpose and slaughter everybody. Or the helicopter to blow up. None of this happened, unfortunately. These unlikable, uncharming people just packed up and left. The end. After watching it I was desperate to immerse myself in something warm and fuzzy, possibly involving Hugh Grant or Jackie Chan. Or Audrey Hepburn. With some songs and some sex. And an exploding helicopter.

"The reader" is a dark fable from post-war Germany, which asks - but fails to answer - some searching questions about individual and collective guilt, selfishness and kindness. Maybe such questions are ultimately unanswerable, but they have to be asked. It is also a deeply touching love story, beautifully constructed and acted from the start.

A troubled middle-aged barrister, Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes) reflects on his 15-year old self (David Kross), and the affair that lit up his life in dour, rain-soaked, 50s Berlin. During a tram journey he becomes ill, vomiting in an alley; and a stranger (Kate Winslet) cleans him up and helps him home. After recovering from a long illness he returns with flowers to her poky little flat. A central feature of the flat is a bathtub, fuelled by coal. He sees her bathing, and becomes obsessed with the woman - who is obviously much older - and visits her again. He himself is a charming, well-educated, popular and handsome young man. After helping her with bags of coal, he is persuaded to take a bath, whereupon she secretly observes his naked body, then seduces him. So begins their brief encounter – a strange but tender one, which involves him reading to her in between bouts of bathing and of course lovemaking. There is nothing pornographic about the sex, but it is intensely erotic with Winslet's womanly figure against Kross's toned youthful body. I don't know whether Kate used a body double, but it certainly doesn't appear so. He reads all sorts of things – Mark Twain, Chekhov, Tintin comics, even erotica (which she pretends to disapprove of). The odd thing is that she herself never reads the books, indeed she seems totally uninterested in books as objects. He knows nothing about this solitary woman except her name, Hanna; she neither knows nor cares anything for his background. She has set strict boundaries to their relationship. Yet she becomes the gravitational centre of his universe, as she is the centre of the whole movie. He discovers she is a tram conductor, and he tries to meet her on a tram. This triggers a row in which she shows her cold, cruel side. But they go on an idyllic bicycle tour, and fetch up at a country church where children are singing some sublime choral music. She looks at him with tears streaming down her face, clearly she has an innate ability to respond to great art. But there is something deeper about her response. The church itself is significant in some way. In a rare scene involving herself without him, she is offered promotion to an office job. Strangely this triggers an exodus, she packs her bags and leaves. Some observant viewers may already guess what's going on. When he discovers the empty flat, Michael is devastated.

We move to the middle part of the film, with our hero a law student (still played by David Kross). He has lost some of his jaunty disposition, having been deeply affected by Hanna's abandonment of him. As part of his studies he attends a war crimes trial, where he is shocked to learn that his former lover is up on trial for crimes against humanity, committed as an SS Guard. This is where, to avoid spoilers, we have to leave this absorbing story.

Please watch this film. I believe this film throws up some intriguing moral points which deserve reflection on the part of the viewer. Of course points about retribution and mercy, but also about the ageing process, remorse, the role of literacy in our society. A modern, humane Germany coming to terms with its brutal past. This may be the first time we have seen a sympathetic portrait of a full-on Nazi war criminal other than Hitler himself. The film is visually superior, realistically re-creating scenes from the recent history of Germany, from wet Berlin to the sunny countryside. David Kross is outstanding as the young student, so eager to shed his virginity but in much deeper than he can imagine. Yes, the film has flaws. The conceit of making the actors speak English with a German accent is almost laughable these days. There is some unconvincing stuff which tries to establish the Fiennes character in a domestic and work context. I'm not entirely convinced by Ralph Fiennes himself – so perfect in "The English patient". Physiologically he is so different from David Kross that we can't make a proper connection between the two. Fiennes is too melancholy and urbane. Maybe a better alternative would have been to use makeup and prosthetics to age Kross. After all, they did a superb job with Kate Winslet. And that brings me to the huge central performance – that of Winslet herself. She bravely shows everything that is required of this character – a deeply flawed psyche, beauty, intense sexuality, vulnerability. But also coldness, cruelty, ultimately an unknowable human being. I can visualise her face during the trial - lonely, puzzled, hopeless, but still beautiful. I can't praise her performance enough, it is utterly haunting, and well deserving of the Oscar she received.

Sorry to disagree with most of the known universe, but I had a few problems with this movie. Firstly, the good things - the plot and the reveal were quite inventive, the photography was superb, and Bruce Willis & Toni Collette were excellent as usual. I'm not so sure about the child actor Haley Joel Osment, to be honest I found him irritating. And Olivia Williams is the quintessential plummy English actress, why on earth did they make her speak in an American accent (or choose an American actress, if this was required)? My biggest issue is all the padding which seems to go with these psychological chillers. There is not a huge amount of action, we spend a lot of time gazing soulfully into people's eyes while moody music plays to illustrate the troubled theme. The boy states that he sees dead people "all the time". Unfortunately, we don't. We get a fleeting glimpse of about five dead people. The movie could have been so much better, with some really frightening scenes, and a tense build up to the finale (as in "The shining", a superior movie in every respect). Instead, all the tension is released long before the end, which comes as a let down. There could have been more development of some minor characters like the teacher, or the people at the funeral. A great opportunity missed, in my view.