The Reader

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Emmy Award®-winner James Gandolfini (All The King's Men, TV's The Sopranos), Oscar®-winner Susan Sarandon (Shall We Dance, Stepmom), Oscar®-nominated Kate Winslet (Titanic, Finding Neverland), Steve Buscemi (Fargo, Reservoir Dogs), Mandy Moore (Chasing Liberty, The Princess Diaries), Emmy Award®-winner Bobby Cannavale (Snakes on a Plane, The Bone Collector), Golden Globe Award®-winner Mary-Louise Parker (Red Dragon, Fried Green Tomatoes), Aida Turturro (Deep Blue Sea, Sleepers), Emmy Award®-winner Eddie Izzard (My Super-Ex Girlfriend, Ocean's Twelve) and Oscar®-winner Christopher Walken (Click, The Wedding Crashers) lead an all-star cast in this down-and-dirty modern day musical set which tells the story of one man's journey into infidelity ! and redemption. Nick (Gandolfini) is an ironworker who builds and repairs bridges. He's married to Kitty (Sarandon), a dressmaker, a strong and gentle woman with whom he has three daughters and must struggle to cope with her husband's betrayal. He is carrying on a torrid affair with a flame haired seductress named Tula (Winslet). It is only through a tragic twist of fate that Nick finally understands the extent of the pain he has inflicted on his family. With time running out he discovers the essential value of Kitty's love and respect. In an imaginative, humorous, and touching way, Romance & Cigarettes explores the cost and value of a relationship through life and death. When the characters can no longer express themselves with language, they break into song, lip-synching the tunes lodged in their subconscious. It is their way to escape the harsh reality of their world - to dream, to remember, and to connect to another human being.Some musicals target families, ot! hers set their sights on more mature audiences (think Chica! go). To judge by appearances, John Turturro's suburban operetta has little in common with Rob Marshall's urban razzle-dazzler, except it also aims for the melodrama-meets-film noir set--and features as much graphic language as Goodfellas. James Gandolfini sets the scene as Queens ironworker Nick Murder (Steve Buscemi plays his best pal). Nick's marriage to Kitty (Susan Sarandon) has hit the skids. His relationships with his daughters (Mandy Moore, Mary-Louise Parker, and John's cousin, Aida Turturro) are just as fraught. Then again, all women, including fiery mistress Tula (Kate Winslet), befuddle the lug. As in the works of Dennis Potter, characters express themselves through song--in this case, a combination of singing and lip-synching. And when they burst into a tune, everyone joins in, from sanitation workers to welders. The material ranges from crooner standards ("A Man without Love") to rock classics ("Piece of My Heart"). Like Potter's The Singing Detective,! fantasy also commingles with reality (Kitty envisions her first love returning from the dead). Turturro's third directorial effort arrives as a labor of love--a difficult labor. When studio restructuring caused delays, he assumed distribution duties himself. Just as passion is rarely tidy, his Coen Brothers-produced movie can be messy--the tender moments play better than the boisterous ones--but the director's passion for his material shines through. It can also be very funny, especially when Cousin Bo (Christopher Walken) shakes a leg to Tom Jones's "Delilah." --Kathleen C. FennessyThe Reader, set in post-WWII Germany, follows teenager Michael Berg as he engages in a passionate but secretive affair with an older woman named Hanna. Eight years after Hanna s disappearance, Michael is stunned to discover her again as she stands on trial for Nazi war crimes. The Reader is a haunting story about truth and reconciliation and how one generation comes to terms with the cri! mes of another. Kate Winslet won and Academy Award and a Golde! n Globe for her performance.What is the nature of guilt--and how can the human spirit survive when confronted with deep and horrifying truths? The Reader, a hushed and haunting meditation on these knotty questions, is sorrowful and shocking, yet leavened by a deep love story that is its heart. In postwar Germany, young schoolboy Michael (German actor David Cross) meets and begins a tender romance with the older, mysterious Hanna (Kate Winslet, whose performance is a revelation). The two make love hungrily in Hanna's shabby apartment, yet their true intimacy comes as Michael reads aloud to Hanna in bed, from his school assignments, textbooks, even comic books. Hanna delights in the readings, and Michael delights in Hanna.

Years later, the two cross paths again, and Michael (played as an adult by Ralph Fiennes) learns, slowly, horrifyingly, of acts that Hanna may have been involved in during the war. There is a war crimes trial, and the accused at one point asks the panel ! of prosecutors: "Well, what would you have done?" It is that question--as one German professor says later: "How can the next generation of Germans come to terms with the Holocaust?"--that is both heartbreaking and unanswerable. Winslet plays every shade of gray in her portrayal of Hanna, and Fiennes is riveting as the man who must rewrite history--his own and his country's--as he learns daily, hourly, of deeds that defy categorization, and morality. "No matter how much washing and scrubbing," one character says matter of factly, "some sins don't wash away." The Reader (with nods to similar films like Sophie's Choice and The English Patient dares to present that unnerving premise, without offering an easy solution. --A.T. Hurley

Stills from The Reader (Click for larger image)