In a self-fulfilling prophecy after her ostensibly satirical remark in the TV series
Extras, regarding needing that Holocaust film under her belt to bag an Oscar, Kate Winslet did indeed walk away with one from this. If the alarmingly mechanical correlation between the genre role and the award has to be explained in some way, it probably boils down to an overvaluation of pretty actresses doing ugly characters. Her former concentration camp guard living in denial of personal culpability and illiteracy to boot is too teflon-coated to like, and further encumbered with some truly cringeworthy verbal tics, but Winslet at least does a decent job in conveying enough conflict within her denial to allow for some understanding to grow.
It's just that the rest of it has so little to say, about either guilt or responsibility. Ralph Fiennes, as a lawyer in the near-present, hasn't much to do besides mulling over his teenage affair with the reclusive older woman years after she has been exposed and sentenced to life imprisonment for her crimes. A Fiennes left running on empty churns out not much more than clipped hand-wringing. And in turn David Kross, as his teenage self, only gets the staples of any adolescent infatuation drama to work with, and so it's hard to say if there's any more range under his hood. Ultimately, though being preciously assembled,
The Reader runs aground on the same shoals of aimlessness as its cast.
5/10
No comments:
Post a Comment