The Reader

Tonight I saw The Reader, starring Kate Winslet and David Kross.

Based on the bestselling book by Bernard Schlink, the story begins in Germany when Michael (Kross) falls ill on the way home from high school and is found by Hanna (Winslet), an older woman who works on the local trains. She cleans him up and helps him to his home—a random act of kindness not soon forgotten by the boy, who returns three months later when he recovers to offer her flowers in gratitude.

One thing leads to another and the two become passionate lovers. However, it's not just an affair based on sex; it's a meaningful relationship filled with endless lovemaking that's precluded by the young man reading to his partner. Hence, the title.

Before I go any further, I'm in agreement that seeing a film where a woman in her mid-thirties teaches a teenage boy how to make love may seem embarrassing, but let me reassure you that the scenes between Winslet and Kross are incredibly tender, yet sensual, and do the original book every justice (note: I read it years ago and loved it, so I was prepared to be let down by the film). In fact, watching them act so convincingly makes you want to grab a lover and re-invent foreplay with a couple of classic novels. But I digress...

The lovers part before the boy becomes a man and he doesn't encounter Hanna again until he is a law student several years later, sitting in on a Nazi crime trial in which she is a defendant. It seems she was once an Auschwitz prison guard.

From there, the film is a collection of spoilers so I will tell the story no further, but I have to say that if this isn't the year Winslet takes home the Oscar, for this role, there is a conspiracy brewing in the Academy.

She is beyond phenomenal as a tough, yet tender woman following suit in life, making bad decisions she knows are wrong in her heart but is not wise enough to correct. The amount of acting Winslet does in her expressions would allow one to turn off the sound and still feel the gravity of the emotion in the film. I've liked her in every role I've seen her in, but I don't know that she's ever been this good.

Also wonderful is the young David Kross (so young in reality, they had to wait for his 18th birthday to shoot his graphic sex scenes with Winslet), who shows the right balance of innocence and pain as their lives unfold.

Finally, I never thought I'd envision the man who played the most convincingly horrific Nazi 14 years ago, turn the tides and be just as authentic as a citizen shocked by the brutality of the Holocaust. Bravo, Mr. Fiennes.

I can't think of many ways this story could've been told better—and that's why for me it ranks as one of the best films of 2008.

The Duchess

Today I saw The Duchess, starring Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes.

Note: this review does contain spoilers.

Based on British history, the film tells the story of the former 18th century Duchess of Devonshire, Georgiana (Knightley), who is coincidentally an ancestor to our modern-day Princess Diana of Wales.

Unfortunately, their blood was not the only thing these two women had in common.

They both had spunky, outspoken personalities; they both married young into the British Monarchy with every sincerity and hope for a loving union; and they both were cheated on, controlled, lied to and forced to remain in situations that made them miserable—the only difference is that Diana eventually got out.

The Duchess is a well-done exploration of Georgiana's sad life from the time she was married until the time of her eventual complacency to the husband (Fiennes) who was never good to her.

An excitable teenager when first joined together, Georgiana's biggest problems were that her husband didn't "talk" to her and intercourse was mere sex; not the lovemaking she craved.

After two daughters and two stillborn sons, the Duke was growing impatient waiting for an heir and had taken a lover in Georgiana's best (and only) friend Bess (Hayley Atwell). Although "G" (as they called her), had looked away at the Duke's countless other affairs, this one pained her greatly and she expressed her anger at the betrayal, only to be met with indifference on his part. After taking G by force, the Duke finally got his wish and produced a male heir.

The mistress, genuinely caring for her former friend, arranged for the real object of G's affection, politician Charles Grey (Dominic Cooper), to reunite with her—and reunite they did. They also produced a child, daughter Eliza, which the Duke forced the Duchess to surrender to Grey's family.

Throughout this film, the performances are delivered expertly by all actors, not least of whom is Knightley herself—this is a role that feels as if it was tailor made for her, and after watching her, it's hard to picture anyone else pulling it off quite as well. Fiennes, as always is brilliant and Atwell as the conflicted Lady Elizabeth, is pitch perfect, commanding both sympathy and rage at her actions.

The real problems are plenty and scandalous, but at the end of it all, the Duke and the Duchess faced something that millions of people throughout time have faced: a loveless marriage. As the mother of the Duchess says at the beginning of the film, true love is identified instantly—it's a feeling you get that you can't escape.

The sad thing is that when you deny this magic, and gamble your own fate by doing what society (or merely your partner) feels is "right," you're most certainly going to lose. And lose Georgiana did.

It almost makes you feel guilty enjoying the film so much.