Winslet saves the day for The Reader, not so much for getting her kit off in the early section of the film, but as a woman on trial for doing what she thought was her duty. There are moments in the courtroom in which Hanna the tram conductor burns with all the things she cannot or does not know how to say, as she sees her virtues of obedience and conformity transformed into incarnations of evil. It is these moments that make The Reader memorable. Unfortunately, Daldry hasn’t time to linger, and wants to move on with a story that drifts dangerously close to being a legal thriller on the lines of a John Grisham novel.
But the thrills don’t last long either, and the film then switches to an angst-ridden Fiennes trying to cope with his past. He has a run-in with a flinty camp survivor (Lena Olin), who puts the case for the prosecution once again, even as Hanna grows old in prison. She continues to work her way through the canon of Western literature, but all those books, all those words, never seem to be absorbed, or have any impact on her personality or thought.
The Reader has a similar lack of effect on the audience, and while it is interesting for the many of the questions it raises, it never hangs around long enough to answer them.
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