The Reader

Very well acted and presented and a faithful representation of the main points of the novel on which it is based. This film encourages us to look closely at very difficult issues surrounding the atrocities of World War II. I am at a loss to understand why so many critics have been so damning of it. Perhaps it is too subtle for them to understand. It seeks to outlaw the false and intellectually lazy theory to explain the holocaust, namely that the horrors were committed by monsters. In its place we are offered contextualization, not as excuse but as explanation of how quite ordinary people were able to do extraordinarily dreadful things. We avoid these uncomfortable facts at our peril.