I don't hide the fact that I have been infatuate with Kate Winslet since I saw her back in 1994 as a teenager in the New Zealand film
Heavenly Creatures. She had made nearly 20 films since then but most people only remember seeing her in Titanic. So I recently saw both if her current film releases -
The Reader and
Revolutionary Road. She walked away with a Golden Globe for both roles. A rare accomplishment.
The Reader has picked up 5 Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best Actress. The crucial decision in the film is made by a 24-year-old youth, who has information that might help a woman about to be sentenced to life in prison, but withholds it. He is ashamed to reveal his affair with this woman. By making this decision, he shifts the film's focus from the subject of German guilt about the Holocaust and turns it on the human race in general. The film intends his decision as the key to its meaning, but most viewers may conclude that
The Reader is only about the Nazis' crimes and the response to them by post-war German generations.
The film centers on a sexual relationship between Hanna (Kate Winslet), a woman in her mid-30s, and Michael (David Kross), a boy of 15. That such things are wrong is beside the point; they happen, and the story is about how it connected with her earlier life and his later one. It is powerfully, if sometimes confusingly, told in a flashback framework and powerfully acted by Winslet and Kross, with Ralph Feinnes coldly enigmatic as the older Michael.
Michael and Hannah meet in the 1950s. Hanna makes little pretense of genuinely loving Michael, who she calls "kid," and although Michael has a helpless crush on Hanna, it should not be confused with love. He is swept away by the discovery of his own sexuality. What does she get from their affair? Sex, certainly, but it seems more important that he read aloud to her: "Reading first. Sex afterwards." One day Hanna disappears. Michael finds her apartment deserted, with no hint or warning. Eight years later, as a law student, he enters a courtroom and discovers Hanna in a group of Nazi prison guards being tried for murder. By revealing his affair he would be able to help her with a lighter sentence but remains silent instead.
The movie created a lot of discussion among my friends who saw it. What is the movie really about? Why did Hannah not reveal her own secrets? Why didn't Michael have the nerve to come forward? Is the director really pointing the finger at Germans who remained silent during the war?
Revolutionary Road is a much more straightforward story. I thought it was the better of the 2 films altough it did not get nominated for Academy Award for Best Picture. Still it did receive 3 Oscar nominations. The film was directed by Kate Winslet's husband Sam Mendes. You should know it's a tough movie to watch. It re-unites Winslet with her Titanic co-star Leonardo Dicaprio.
The best way to describe
Revolutionary Road is the American Dream awakened by a nightmare. It takes place in the 1950s, the decade of
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. It shows a young couple who meet at a party, get married and create a suburban life with a nice house, a manicured lawn, "modern" furniture, two kids, a job in the city for him, housework for her, and martinis, cigarettes, boredom and desperation for both of them.
Frank (Leonardo Dicaprio) and April (Kate Winslet) can't see inviting futures for themselves. Frank joins the morning march of men in suits and hats out of Grand Central and into jobs where they are "executives" doing meaningless work -- in Frank's case, he's "in office machines." He might as well be one. April suggests he just quit, so they can move to Paris, she can support them as a translator at the American Embassy and he can figure out what he really wants to do. Translating will not support their Connecticut lifestyle, but ...
Paris! What about their children? Their children are like a car you never think about when you're not driving somewhere.
Frank agrees, and they think they're poised to take flight, when suddenly he's offered a promotion and a raise. He has no choice, right? He'll be just as miserable, but better paid. In today's hard times, that sounds necessary, but maybe all times are hard when you hate your life. Frank and April have ferocious fights about his decision, and we realize that April was largely motivated by her own needs. Better to support the neutered Frank in Paris with a job at the embassy, where she might meet someone more interesting than their carbon-copy neighbors. The marriage and their lives just continue to disintegrate.
