The Reader

i think this is a case of, "best not to know too much about the narrative before encounter", so i'm not linking to any trailers or sites, but suffice to say, i saw The Reader tonight, and recommend it highly.
it's been a long time since i saw a film so *morally* provocative.
i haven't read the book on which it is based and some opinion suggests something is lost in translation out of German, but without any foreknowledge at all as to the plot, this film really challenged me and offered no easy answers in the telling...

i am typically drawn to narratives that end with a sense of uncertainty and lack conclusion - that provoke one, with a kind of honesty, to face the frustrating, unfinished nature of so much of life's encounter... if you too like being left as the credits roll to ponder emotional and moral challenges with such open-endedness, then check this one out...

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there's something about the drama of human relationship that hangs on what we don't say, rather than what we do... the tension is between the lines, underneath, in the unspoken and unutterable... perhaps, because in real life we've not got a script... the things we need to say or others need to hear are frequently those which never get past our lips...

LB