58
Metascore
38 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 75ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliThe Reader is closer to a near miss than a rousing success but, on balance, this is still worth seeing for those who enjoy complexity and moral ambiguity within the context of a melodrama.
- 70The Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttThe Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttAn engaging period drama. But German postwar guilt is not the most winning subject matter for the holiday season.
- 67Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumEntertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumThe film is notable for its nice performances, its handsome photography, and its very active music. If the preceding praise sounds generic, so is the movie.
- 63New York PostKyle SmithNew York PostKyle SmithAlthough the script works in a couple of pages of collegiate-level ethical debate about "the question of German guilt," what the movie is really interested in is the question of German sex. So think of it as "Schindler's Lust."
- 60NewsweekDavid AnsenNewsweekDavid AnsenThe Reader can feel stilted and abstract: the film's only flesh-and-blood characters spend half the movie separated. But its emotional impact sneaks up on you. The Reader asks tough questions, and, to its credit, provides no easy answers.
- 60New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanNew York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanProvocatively intentioned, The Reader is a movie worth seeing - the kind of film you'll think about for days afterward. But when all is said and done, you're likely to wonder why the impact wasn't greater still.
- 60The New York TimesManohla DargisThe New York TimesManohla DargisThe film is neither about the Holocaust nor about those Germans who grappled with its legacy: it's about making the audience feel good about a historical catastrophe that grows fainter with each new tasteful interpolation.
- 50VarietyTodd McCarthyVarietyTodd McCarthyStephen Daldry's film is sensitively realized and dramatically absorbing, but comes across as an essentially cerebral experience without gut impact.
- 50Village VoiceVillage VoiceLike many narrative filmmakers who walk on their tippy-toes when dealing with the Holocaust, neither Daldry nor Hare seems eager to make the material his own.
- 40The New YorkerAnthony LaneThe New YorkerAnthony LaneFor those who think of cinema as dramatic roughage, The Reader should prove sufficiently indigestible.