The Reader

No...I don't mean my Amazon Kindle. I went to see this movie on Tuesday night and I LOVED it. It was great and it kept my rapt attention.

Last week I put out an APB to my friends to see if they wanted to go for beers and a movie on Monday or Tuesday night, only one of them accepted the challenge (isn't that sad ;). (BTW...as I am composing this blog I am listing to my new Jason Mraz album for the twenty time since I have downloaded it on Sunday...I think that it is great) I met her at one of my favorite restaurants, PF Chang's, for an overindulgent meal and great conversation.

With fifteen minutes to spare we headed over to the theatre to catch the movie. We had decided to see Rachel Getting Married, and as we are in line to pay I realized that the movie isn't playing the time we were there. I had checked the movie times on Monday and it listed it as 6:45 and I had assumed that it would be the same for Tuesday night. Really is it ever different? The answer is Yes...it is. The theatre was showing a special preview of a new Showtime series (check out moorewrites blog for a description of this event) and this preempted the showing of Rachel Getting Married at 6:45.

We had to make a quick decision on what to see. I had researched my two movie choices and now I didn't know what to see, and my friend is a voracious movie goer and she had already seen most of the available movies so the actual choices were very small. We chose The Reader basically because neither of us had seen it, and I wasn't familiar with the plot or even the actors. Sometimes that makes the move extra good because you don't know what to expect.

The movie was split into two separate sections. The first part dealt with the 15 year old male character having a relationship with an older women in her 30's. We were about fifteen minutes into the movie when I leaned over and asked my companion if the lead actress famous. She gave me a "are you dumb look" and said it was Kate Winslet. I was shocked because she looked so old and haggard. After I thought about it I decided that this was done on purpose to represent the hard life of the character. I thought I had a handle on where the movie was going...an illicit affair with an older women that ends badly. I was right but then sooooo wrong.

The affair does end and badly but goes in a direction I certainly didn't expect. Eight years later while the boy is now in law school he attends a Nazi trial and there is his old girlfriend on trial for war atrocities. During the last hour of the movie I was glued to my chair. I was so enthralled with the story. This was unusual for me because I have a rather small attention span and I am easily distracted.

I really liked how this story was told and how the director put the movie together. The lead actors did an exceptional job and I was impressed. I urge you to see it, even if you are not a person who would normally frequent the art theatre. Enjoy!