‘The Reader’

Ah, sex and guilt. They go together so well -- but not always in the ways you expect.

That's precisely the case in "The Reader," a thoughtful, if somewhat restrained adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's provocative, semiautobiographical best-seller (see what Oprah's Book Club can do for you?) in which the sex plays much more powerfully than the guilt.

That's to be expected, given how well movies play on our emotions.

Certain filmmakers, however, keep trying to appeal to more than the gut. (To use a convenient euphemism.)

They don't always succeed, but "Reader" director Stephen Daldry and screenwriter David Hare deserve credit for how well, and how often, they do.

Daldry and Hare have been down this particular road before, of course, with their 2002 adaptation of Michael Cunningham's novel "The Hours," a study of three women, in three separate time periods, impacted by Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" -- including Woolf herself. (Nicole Kidman won a best actress Oscar for her portrayal of the author.)

"The Reader" and "The Hours" have several things in common.

Foremost, perhaps, is the notion that books can influence lives along with providing an escape from said (sad) lives.

For another, there's the presence of an award-caliber performance at the movie's center. In "The Reader," it's from Kate Winslet, who once again demonstrates an uncanny ability to get under the skin of her characters -- even, and perhaps especially, when those characters are busy exposing as much skin as possible.

Like a reader flipping back and forth to sneak a peek at plot developments, "The Reader" skips back and forth in time, as a cerebral attorney Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes), divorced and distanced from his now-grown daughter, ponders his pivotal formative years in post-World War II Germany.

Most pivotally, and passionately, he recalls his teen years, and his first love: a steamy, clandestine affair with Hanna Schmitz (Winslet), an older tram conductor with a mysterious past and a far-from-clear present.

They meet when young Michael (David Kross, in an impressive English-language debut), trying to get home from school, is overcome by the early symptoms of scarlet fever -- and Hanna stops to help him.

Months later, after Michael recovers, he returns to her apartment to present some flowers as a thank-you and receives a thank-you in return -- as Hanna passionately introduces him to the wonders of sex.

But their encounters go beyond the physical. More than anything, Hanna loves to hear Michael read great books to her -- from "The Odyssey" to "Huckleberry Finn" to "Lady Chatterley's Lover," Hanna's literary appetites are as insatiable as her physical ones.

After one idyllic summer, however, Hanna vanishes from Michael's life.

The next time he sees her, eight years later, he's a law student observing a trial. And, to his great shock, Hanna's one of the defendants, accused of war crimes during her World War II stint as a guard at the notorious Nazi death camp, Auschwitz.

But that wasn't the only secret Hannah kept from Michael.

And his realization of, and respect for, Hannah's other secret reverberates throughout "The Reader," as Michael and Hanna forge a far different, yet equally intense, connection.

Serious stuff for a steamy tale of a cougar and her cub. Yet "The Reader" tries mightily to balance its cerebral and carnal side.

In the attempt, Daldry and Hare sometimes err on the obvious, heavy-handed side -- as when, in one of young Michael's classes, a teacher somberly intones that "the notion of secrecy is central to Western literature." (To say nothing of "The Reader" -- duuuh.)

Later, as Michael watches his one-time beloved accused of unspeakable crimes, he must confront the generation gap of all generation gaps: the one separating those born after World War II from their predecessors, who went along with (or, in Hanna's case, actively participated in) Hitler's Final Solution.

The evil (and the banality of evil) behind such behavior, however, is only one factor operating throughout "The Reader." There's also the question of love and loyalty -- and whether personal feelings should ever trump moral principles.

These abstract ideas prove as gripping as they do thanks to "The Reader's" starring trio, who convey their characters' inner conflicts with striking clarity.

Kross captures young Michael's churning emotions -- lust, yes, but also idealism and intellectual fervor -- with palpable, yet understated, passion. And Fiennes radiates rueful, haunting regret as the older, world-weary Michael.

Pivotal as their contributions prove, however, "The Reader" remains Winslet's movie from first to last. Hanna's murky motivations and mercurial behavior may be contradictory, but through Winslet's fierce, fearless performance, we come to understand her often inexplicable actions -- and the desperate, helpless anger fueling them.

She's hardly a lovable character, but Winslet's performance helps us share Michael's feelings. Somehow, there's something irresistible about her -- even if it's only her all-too-human failings.

Contact movie critic Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.