The Reader

Written at the time of the film's release...

"Thus Conscience Doth Make Cowards of Us All"

I'm quoting Shakespeare there, so obviously this is a very "serious", and "important" film. But just to raise the hackles of any Weinstein Co. "readers" out there, here's a snarky little blanket quote to start things off:

Take The Summer of '42 and strip all the fun out of it and you have The Reader.

No, really. You've got the moony kid, but instead of 40's Nantucket, move it to early 60's Berlin. Instead of said moony kid having friends who provide the comedy relief, this kid is absolutely friendless, so there is no comedy or relief to be found, and instead of the lovely nubile widow-to-be showing him the ways of the world, you have the dour, nubile former SS-guard showing him just about every position in the book (I counted).

Still, I saw The Reader with a nearly sold-out crowd, possibly because it's nearing the end of its run in theaters, but also because Kate Winslet is nominated for an Oscar for it (and is most likely to win).* Stephen Daldry's previous film was The Hours, and this shares that film's chilly demeanor, and emotional opaqueness. But where The Hours resonated over several story-lines to come to a dramatically satisfying conclusion, The Reader moves along its clear-cut path, as the principles age, but seem not to mature. One would think that wisdom would creep into any of these creatures at some point, but it is not to be found. One is left to sit in frustration while actions are carried out—or more specifically, not carried out—despite some ample history lessons contained therein teaching the folly of such a philosophy. Relationships do not alter, although a lifetime of experience may be contained within the boundaries of them. And finally, the film makes a mockery of the word "responsible."

One comes away impressed by a line of dialogue every once in a while (David Hare wrote the script), the period detail seems right, the performances are "correct" (as they both play different ages of the same character, they seem to have found a perfect actor in David Kross who can match Ralph Fiennes for miserableness), but ultimately it's all for naught. This is a film without lesson, without moral, rightly or wrongly, but insists on trying to instill some shred of sympathy for a person responsible for inhuman behavior, based on their shame of a condition that they have the power to change at any time. What a waste.

* Man, you can get cynical with this, but the part has everything: the character is sympathetic/unsympathetic; has an affliction (illiterate, so no appliance-work, or physical moods to use) and a role that requires a lot of de-glamming make-up, as the character is required to age from 40 to 80. I tell ya, it's got everything to grab the gold...and then there's this YouTube video, that refers to this YouTube video.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Written at the time of the film's release...

The Schell Game

or

An Irrational Fear of the Irrational

Not sure what the problem with young Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn) is: it could be borderline autism, or as is brought up, Asperger Syndrome ("the tests were inconclusive," he deadpans). It could be "mean world syndrome" or "fusion paranoia," or something as simple as shock or grief, maybe even survivor's guilt. But, coached by his father (Tom Hanks) who died in the Twin Towers on 9/11, he is on a mission to find answers by the same empirical methods Dad used to create scavengers' hunts throughout the city of New York.

To the young Schell, the events that took his father, literally before his eyes, yet in an abstract undefinable way (he literally vanishes, but there is no body to bury), it is all horrifyingly absurd, and the only way to wrap his mind around it is a quest, in the same way that his father distracted him from his fears, which are plentiful (closed spaces, crowded places, tubes and tunnels, things that fly, things that are loud, bridges that could collapse) all things that keep his logical, compartmentalized fact-file of a mind focused on the task at hand, to the rhythm of the tambourine that he shakes to keep his own mind from being rattled by anything else.

One day, after visiting the shrine he's constructed for his father, he confronts for the first time his father's room and closet kept undisturbed since the Al Qaida attacks, smelling his clothes, trying to recall the sense-memory of him, when by happenstance, he finds an envelope (marked "Black") containing a single key.  Thinking it to be the ultimate of one of his father's challenges, he embarks to find the one lock in all of New York mated to that key.

It's a tortured, torturing metaphor. What he's really looking for is something...anything...that might give him solace for his loss, an answer to why his beloved, obliquely protecting father might vanish so completely, without even the cold reality of a corpse to ground him to reality.  In the process, he neglects his mother (Sandra Bullock), his schooling, his life...for the ultimate answer of purpose, and thereby complete the education cut short by the death of his father.  It's a risky premise, one that, ultimately, can have no real resolution, but only absolve him of any complicity in the events of his father's death. 

What Oskar is actually looking for is his own penance.

Movies come in cycles, not only because of the economic consequences of box-office (nothing in Hollywood succeeds like excess), but also with the nation's zeitgeist.  Is it any coincidence that Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a modern day version of New York film-maker Martin Scorsese's Hugo...about another boy's father-quest involving a key and finding something else more than himself?  Hard to say...anymore than that Hugo and The Artist are both explorations and celebrations of the era of visual story-telling displayed by the dawn of moving pictures. 

But, EL&IC has the disadvantage of being a little too close to the theme without the benefit of artistic distance, while being a little too obvious about what it's trying to say...which, as it turns out, isn't much...other than "what are you worried about, kid, when you might be hit by a bus tomorrow." Or dharma works, when runaway karma runs over your dogma. Thanks, but I'd rather have Méliès be a cure for my malaise.

But, what a cast...Hanks, Bullock (basically in the background for most of the movie but allowed to shine at the film's resolution), John Goodman, Viola Davis, Jeffrey Wright and a steady stream of fine character actors as Oskar's many encounters and tough-stones on his journey.  But, the finest of the bunch is Max von Sydow as the Campbellian "helper by the side of the road" that he plays mutely without a word of dialog.  Again, the part is a little obvious and a little tortured, but von Sydow once again provides an actor's master class in taking a role of lightness and making it breathe with life and truth.