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The Reader

Reading Time:2 minutes
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Starring: Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, David Kross, Lena Olin

Director: Stephen Daldry

Category: III

The Reader features the towering, Oscar-winning performance of Kate Winslet, which is matched by an impressive turn from her on-screen partner, David Kross. Then there's director Stephen Daldry's mise-en-scene, which spawns a brooding, melancholic atmosphere, enhanced by tasteful cinematography from Roger Deakins and Chris Menges.

Add to this the inspiration for the film, the book of the same name by Bernhard Schlink, which explores how Germans growing up right after the end of the second world war face up to the calamitous misdeeds of their forebears during the Nazi era.

Reason suggests that such a mix of elements would yield a remarkable piece of filmmaking. The Reader, however, is anything but - and the film's major shortcoming stems from how it prizes intellectual aptitude over moral goodness.

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