The Reader

I don’t understand the award buzz for this film, though I haven’t understood the award buzz for a lot of recent winners (see: Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), Kate Winslet is fine in the film, but doesn’t do anything particularly groundbreaking, she can be better (see: Revolutionary Road), the film skirts around the most interesting concepts that it brings up, in particular the law vs. morality issue in the second half of the film, I kept waiting for the film to delve into this aspect, but it left me disappointed and feeling a bit dry, the emotional climax at the end of the film felt manipulative as well, I was disappointed and I’ve never read the book, I have heard even bigger disappointments from those that have, so readers beware.