The slim book on which the film is based is a wonderful read. Knowing the book makes the film much less exciting. The first hour feels very slow, particularly because book felt brisk. In the second hour the drama receives a jumpstart and you forget that you are sitting on perhaps a not so comfortable seat in the movie house. I read the book in one evening and savored the experience. After two hours watching The Reader I felt drained. A story nourished by the background of German society’s difficulty to come to terms with what Germans did between 1933 to 1945 was turned in the film into a story about how individual lives are messed up by experiences during childhood and youth. That story we have heard a million of times.  Commercially the film benefitted from being made by Hollywood.

Artistically, the film would have been much better if it had been made by Germans who could have brought onto the screen much more powerfully the challenges of dealing with collective guilt instead of telling us American stories about individual suffering. If you don’t know the book, you will enjoy the film.