Spoilers ahead
Just saw this yesterday. I thought it was really good, it was one of those movies that you leave the theater just plain unable to form an opinion on anything. I liked how the movie (I know it was a book) didn’t explain how much she actually had to do with the church burning down. It was obvious she didn’t write that false report, but it wasn’t obvious exactly how much she did, and why. She never speaks of it outside of the court-room, you don’t know what to think really. For one, she was the only one being honest about the situation, and she lied about her inability to read/write. I think that the movie could have dwelled a bit more on this idea of her guilt, but I don’t think that was the focus of this story.
I love movies that make you think, and the reader definitely made me think. When she asked the judge/inquisitor “What would you have done?” It really got me thinking about how horrible a situation Germany must have been in after ww2. They knew what they did was horrible, “There were over 1000 camps in Europe, everybody knew” but why did the keep quiet? I don’t know what I would have done, I certainly know what I would have do now, but who is to say exactly. Growing up in Nazi germany, being fed all of the lies, getting a high paying job in the army. For all we know she and her entire family could have been executed for treason. The movie put the thought into our heads that the whole trial was to find a scapegoat, someone to hate. Someone to blame things on even though many others had done much worse. The trial was very much condemning the very monsters that the country had created in WWII.
Overall I felt the movie was put together well. It is really hard for movies to pull off the double story well. (Movie changing focus drastically) This one did the job right. It went from heartwarming/slightly creepy to just pure shock, back to heartwarming/slightly creepy. Him receiving that first letter was very moving, and him finally showing up to see her was just… powerful. I really enjoyed the scene between Fiennes and Winslet at the end of the movie. When he stood up you could tell the meeting was over too soon in her eyes, you could tell that she was trying to be warm and he was still remaining cold. There was no embrace outside of the hand holding (which she initiated). When they parted he stood up, and she looked as if she was waiting for his embrace, and I was sure it was going to happen… but he walked away. She knew that he could never forgive her.
The best acting is in between the lines in the script, and I felt that Winslet really out did herself here. To make you feel sorry for an ex-SS officer who allowed 300 jews to burn alive… that is acting.
The movie was just so weird, Winslett had this mixture of coldness and distance in her character for the whole movie. You could tell something deep was weighing on her all throughout the film. She was very stark, and yet at the same time you could see bits of humanity there.
I can see some validity in the criticisms of this film, as there were parts that bordered on bothersome. The young actor was awkward, which I felt served his character well, but sometimes it got close to being a little off-putting. He did much better in the college years part of the film.
The movie definitely felt like a vehicle for Winslett’s performance, (much like how There will be Blood was a vehicle for Daniel-Day Lewis).