The Reader

In our never-ending quest to see all the Oscar-nominated pictures before the Oscars (we like to have our own opinions before they are foisted upon us) we went last night to see "The Reader". I'm not sure if there are any 'feel good' movies in the running this year, but if there were, this wouldn't be it.  Start with a love affair between a 15-year-old boy and a former Nazi prison guard, and you already have the feeling that this isn't "High School Musical 3." 

But, if you take away my predilection for happier fare, it was quite good: a movie whose performances drew me in, and left me thinking long after I left the theater--not so much about the moral questions (of which there were plenty) but of the how and why of telling the story, the ways that meaning was conveyed and accentuated, the metaphors that were chosen and how they were carried through. I find myself doing this more and more--perhaps as a result of doing the same sort of thing in my writing. How much can you rely on symbolism without beating your audience over the head with it? Will they get it at all? And if they don't, will the work make sense on the most basic level?

"The Reader" succeeds because (I think) it can be read on a number of levels, and is subject to a number of thematic interpretations.  These days, any film that leaves you thinking, and that isn't forgotten almost before you get home, is a keeper.