WTF????????? And Kate got an oscar for this?????? no apology from de academy for ignoring her work from titanic to little children to eternal sunshine...to finding neverland....nd she gets it for an excuse for a movie-reader???????????? dey shud stock dis movie's video alongside american pie's in video stores nd put a marker-"warning, may actually make u go insane wid frustration and disappointment"

Good film, Ralph Fiennes was terrific, and so was the younger character.

I found this movie to be slightly better than average. Not particularly memorable, and sure as shit not Oscar worthy. There's really not much to say. It's pretty straight forward. The only interesting thing thematically going on here is the attempt to humanize SS soldiers, but that attempt pretty much crosses from sub-text to actual text. Not very clever. I could recommend the film for the performances I suppose, but the story isn't anything to get excited about.

The actors are indeed quite convinving in their roles, but that can't hide the boredom that drags on and on and on for almost the whole two hours of the movie...

The first half was much better than the second half. After the character grew up to be the Schindler's List guy, I stopped caring about him. A very sappy but watchable film. Winslet was obviously the best thing about it.

The score, while not necessarily memorable, is I think the best way to describe the mood this film took, which is melodrama. The thing about it, though, is that it works pretty well. I knew nothing of The Reader going in, but having loved The Hours I was anticipating it. Daldry's presence here, unfortunately, seems a little non-existent. I enjoyed it for what it was, but I wasn't very emotionally invested. Maybe that's a criticism, maybe not. I don't know. All I can tell you is it's just good.

This has high aspirations but proves a somewhat tricky adaptation to screen. Still, Winslet's performance is a somber and convincing treat.

The great: Winslet and Kross' performances, and the breathtaking cinematography. Also the source material. The bad: the wildly inconsistent aesthetic distancing employed by the director. On the one hand, the sex scenes are very explicit...and yet, on the other hand, the atrocities of the Nazis and the war crimes that were committed are downplayed, dealt with a bit too artistically. Still, overall, doesn't deserve to be completely dismissed as "Oscar bait".

Winslet just spent a third of the film baring her breasts and apparently that's enough to win the best leading actress Oscar nowadays. This is not to speak ill of Kate Winslet's breasts, but if this qualifies as great acting, I'd hate to see what would happen if the Academy ever discovered the cultural phenomenon known as "pornography".

A bit slow, especially in the middle part, but overall this was a good film about the teenager having a sexual relationship with an older woman in post-WWII Germany, leading up to a war crimes trial where it turns out not everything was what it seemed to be. Great performance from Kate Winslet, though maybe not Oscar-deserving. But please... either let your actors speak English or German, but not English with a annoying German accent. That's just stupid.

As low as I can rate a movie that's this well-acted, but it's ultimately an empty viewing experience. The movie opens numerous story possibilities for itself along the way, but goes nowhere with most of them. Winslet is tremendous (and very naked), and Kross is surprisingly strong as well, but...ugh. It's just flagrant Oscar bait that serves no real purpose. Countless films were robbed of proper recognition because of the nominations this received. Congrats Harvey. Winslet's Extras ep came true.

The first hour was somewhat uninteresting, and the amount of nakedness made the film laughable. Despite that, I was deeply emotionally invested in the second part. Ralph Fiennes is amazing and should be The Readers acting contribution to the Oscar show. Winslet was good, but she was better in Revolutionary Road.

Kate Winslet, as always, puts on a fabulous performance but the rest of the movie leaves a lot to be desired. With an extra third of the movie tacked on there could have been a lot to be explored as what we have now, clearly stripped of depth, is rather unfulfilling. The sexual intensity the movie brings is really excellent, but once that's over we are given scene after scene that advance neither the relationship of the characters or the story, really. The Reader is Oscar bait at best.

Contrasts Innocence and guilt - pleasure and pain - ignorance and enlightenment - youth and age - idealism and betrayal - punishment and forgiveness - thru an intimate tale of two lovers separated by intellectual and generational fences

A decent human drama with GREAT performances, though German characters should speak German. Never really got to me compared to for instance Hours

Nicely crafted despite the -at times- over-sentimentalist direction. Kate Winslet manages to deliver a powerful performance out of Schlink's unforgettable character.

Le scénario est male ecrit (tout simplement), ce qui endicape fortement ce film !!!

The Reader is part romance, part German reconstruction commentary, and part a journey of self discovery for Michael.Hannah Schmitz is neither good nor bad but naive, stubborn, and proud..The film is nice in that Hannah is not absolved for her actions, neither for her partaking in the holocaust or her damaging relationship with Michael, it just shows them like a gaping wound.Hannah's story is small, in the larger picture the Reader is about much more.When people fail to act and do what is right

not worth any oscars by a long shot, but asks some good and important questions. it's much as much about juridicial forms of power as much of those of love.

This movie could only be written in the modern day. It's characters are so utterly consumed with themselves and their own private shames, that they no longer have any sense of where their shame should truly lie. Only in this day and age can we conceive of a character who is more ashamed of her illiteracy than she is of her part in killing 300 people. Really? Sorry, but no. It might help if it didn't all seem so ridiculously pointless.

SPOILERS An overlong collection of repetitive, boring sex scenes intercut with scenes of the future just to ruin any semblance of flow after which a trial begins which ends badly for the main characters only because they're too fucking stupid to point out that Hanna can't read. The film ends on a mediocre note that would have been good if not for the lead male in the final act acting decently at the best of times and everyone, despite being in Germany, speaking English with heavy German accents.

Kate Winslet gives the performance of the year in the most moving, beautiful film of the year. Forget what you heard about the film's inaccessibility or its lack of emotion; this film is the only film that has moved me close to tears in quite a long time, thanks to Daldry's direction, Hare's potent adaptation, and the performances of both Winslet and the surprisingly excellent Kross.

Decent..