The film has Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient/The Constant Gardener) and Kate Winslet (due for an Academy Award by now, huh?), a Holocaust subplot, an extended plot, and an oh so serious reason to watch Kate naked (a specialty for her), so why not nominate it for Best Picture? Sure, the movie unfortunately is not as a whole that good, but people said that for one or more of the other nominees too, right? It would have helped if boring Fiennes wasn't the true center of the film. Lena Olin, who in effect has a cameo, was more interesting. Blah.
[BTW, one of the several producers of the film was Sydney Pollack, who will not be up there if the movie wins for Best Picture. Except perhaps in spirit.]
The film starts unpromisingly -- an oh so arch setting of an egg in a holder and coffee being poured. Those English ... wait he's German ... hold their emotions in, huh? Well, if you slept with a Nazi war criminal as a teenager (even if you didn't know it at the time), you might have had problems too. The movie's sexy side does pop up when we soon see the nice backside of his current lover. Who we never see again. Great role, that! I reckon if you had Kate Winslet, even if she was in that life an illiterate ticket clerk, as an instructor, you'd find good mates too. Even if you were something of a cold fish.
That part of the film, whatever the symbolism etc., is -- let's be honest -- teenage boy fantasy material. Now, I'm all for serious portrayals of sexuality, and good for Kate to have taken some chances on that front. But, still, I could not totally take the teenage boy / thirty-something woman affair too seriously. It didn't help that even the guy who played the younger Michael Berg character was just not that interesting. I glanced at the book, and it was not just a first person narrative (the movie has a few scenes just of Kate, but it is clearly Ralph's show), so we get a window into her perspective more so than here. OTOH, this movie focuses too much on a somewhat boring character, his story going in fits and starts aside from the key plot points.*
The book and movie clearly has various messages about evil, emotions, reading (some sort of metaphor that she learns how to read in prison as compared to be read to earlier, probably, but the movie didn't really sell it that much) etc. that has promising dramatic implications. I plan to read the book, so might determine if it did a better job (it was originally in German). But, though the movie has some good stuff -- the affair has some spark, the court and prison scenes do as well etc. -- it does not work as a whole. Some really didn't much care for it. I would give it a mixed grade. Definitely slips later on.
Probably worth watching, especially for fans of Kate Winslet (not just her body), but not Best Picture caliber. Wall-E would have been a better fit for the fifth spot or maybe some lesser known film of the "nice enough to be nominated" category. This seems more of the "hey Ralph Fiennes is in it and its oh so serious!" category. Too pretentious.
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* For instance, suddenly he is divorced with a small child. Then, he starts sending audiotapes to Hannah in prison. We really don't know why. Oh, a key decision by law school Michael also was a major weenie move. Even if understandable, it added to the character's blah quality.