The Reader’ serves as a vantage point from which to voyeuristically lust after both of Kate Winslet’s Golden Globes, in a display of exhibitionism (as former SS officer Hanna Schmitz) that borders on expensive pornography. The tasteful dosage of nudity is a performance enhancer for Winslet, who got her beginnings as a stripper-bare muse for Mr. DiCaprio himself. Through the peephole, Winslet now manages to define a new portmanteau: the sexinazi.
Artsy cinematography can’t mask ‘The Reader”s kinkiness. Winslet’s breasts float just below the milky bath surface at ‘au natural’ angle, pre-perked so as to reveal the orbs of her nipples. They later make a glorious comeback, barely hiding behind her wet bra at lakeside.
Directing 15-year-old Michael Berg in the art of fucking, Hanna Schmitz assumes the missionary position, exposing her PTSD for all the world to see. The recurrence of Winslet’s naked flesh in her films suggests a clear strategy ‘mdash; no critic would deride an actress with the gall to flash the world. But an impeccable restraint, coupled with unbridled passion, easily renders Winslet bona fide Oscar material. Then, indulging in the phantasmagoria of illicit sexual escapades, the film climaxes with the groans of conviction at Hanna Schmitz’s Holocaust crime trial.
‘The Reader’ avoids adding to the robust canon of apologetic WWII films. With its lascivious underpinning, the film instead exudes the romp and lewd intercourse of a mentally askew, guilty murderer, leaving us hardened in more ways than one.