Movies that suck: The Reader
Horribly behind on LJ, but nothing better to do as I wait for the Oscars to start. I watched The Reader earlier today and it sucks. Well, watched parts of it. Wasn't good enough to hold my attention the whole time. The problem is that the main conceit of the movie is just bad.
Okay, here's my idea for how to make the Holocaust relevant to a later generation. The fact that the people involved in the Holocaust were not demonic aliens but normal people collecting a paycheck is deep, and can remind people that it's something still relevant to watch for - would you be willing to sacrifice to stand up for what's right?
So. Person A was in the Holocaust, where they stood by and did the easy thing rather than the hard thing. But Person A gets in trouble for something else that isn't actually their fault. Person B can prove their innocence, but at great cost to them (perhaps because Person B is really at fault?), and more generally they know Person A's secret and are half-tempted to just let A burn. What do they do? Person B does nothing, thus ironically inflicting the same fate on A as A did to their victims.
Okay. That's what I'd have done to teach the moral lesson I *think* this film wants to teach. Except the movie's plotline blows it HORRIBLY. Basically Kate Winslet could have bailed HERSELF out. She participated in the Holocaust, and is going to be convicted of a worse ringleading crime she's actually innocent of. Why? Because she's accused of writing a document when she's illiterate. And she refuses to say she's illiterate, when this would instantly clear her. Because OMG THE SECRET SHAME OF ILLITERACY IS WORSE THAN MASS MURDER?! Or maybe Winslet just has a guilt syndrome and wants to have the book thrown at her. I dunno. The general point is that Winslet is still basically guilty, can bail herself out, and the only cost for Our Hero to clear her is to admit to a youthful affair. The cost of, say, trying to help the Jews in WWII could have been death, and the cost of even refusing to work for the government might well have been poverty and starvation. So... they totally screwed up any kind of moral symmetry which is crucial to pull this kind of plot off. It's just idiotic and cowardly rather than the tragic cycle of humanity. I mean, seriously, illiteracy > mass murder?! Admission of an affair > 30 years in prison? WTF?!
In other news, Benjamin Button was okay, but not really Best Picture worthy? Also the last third of the movie is meh.
So Button abandons his child because it'd be weird to be aging in reverse? When he's gone through the entire rest of the movie with everyone acting blase about the fact that he's aging in reverse? Look, I respect the need for movie logic to make a plot like this work (and not have Button imprisoned by the CDC and used as a test subject), but once that genie is out of the bottle, it doesn't go back. So... Button is randomly a shmuck and we accelerate through the last years of his life because we're out of time or something. Dangit, I'd have been interested in an "old" young Button. Then they also have some lame line that seems to be a moral about following your heart or something. But hasn't Button's heart been to hang out with Cate Blanchett as much as possible? Why the hell is he leaving when he was defined earlier as practically stalking her? Sigh.
Didn't see Milk or Frost/Nixon yet.
Anyway, go Slumdog Millionaire, pledge yourself to the darkness and let the fools who stand in its way be destroyed by the power it possesses.
Edit: And it won. Well, against that competition, good. WALL-E should totally have taken The Reader's slot, though. That'd be tough to decide between. (I can also see giving The Dark Knight at least a nom slot even if it shouldn't win, a la LOTR: Two Towers getting a nod in 2003.)
Okay, here's my idea for how to make the Holocaust relevant to a later generation. The fact that the people involved in the Holocaust were not demonic aliens but normal people collecting a paycheck is deep, and can remind people that it's something still relevant to watch for - would you be willing to sacrifice to stand up for what's right?
So. Person A was in the Holocaust, where they stood by and did the easy thing rather than the hard thing. But Person A gets in trouble for something else that isn't actually their fault. Person B can prove their innocence, but at great cost to them (perhaps because Person B is really at fault?), and more generally they know Person A's secret and are half-tempted to just let A burn. What do they do? Person B does nothing, thus ironically inflicting the same fate on A as A did to their victims.
Okay. That's what I'd have done to teach the moral lesson I *think* this film wants to teach. Except the movie's plotline blows it HORRIBLY. Basically Kate Winslet could have bailed HERSELF out. She participated in the Holocaust, and is going to be convicted of a worse ringleading crime she's actually innocent of. Why? Because she's accused of writing a document when she's illiterate. And she refuses to say she's illiterate, when this would instantly clear her. Because OMG THE SECRET SHAME OF ILLITERACY IS WORSE THAN MASS MURDER?! Or maybe Winslet just has a guilt syndrome and wants to have the book thrown at her. I dunno. The general point is that Winslet is still basically guilty, can bail herself out, and the only cost for Our Hero to clear her is to admit to a youthful affair. The cost of, say, trying to help the Jews in WWII could have been death, and the cost of even refusing to work for the government might well have been poverty and starvation. So... they totally screwed up any kind of moral symmetry which is crucial to pull this kind of plot off. It's just idiotic and cowardly rather than the tragic cycle of humanity. I mean, seriously, illiteracy > mass murder?! Admission of an affair > 30 years in prison? WTF?!
In other news, Benjamin Button was okay, but not really Best Picture worthy? Also the last third of the movie is meh.
So Button abandons his child because it'd be weird to be aging in reverse? When he's gone through the entire rest of the movie with everyone acting blase about the fact that he's aging in reverse? Look, I respect the need for movie logic to make a plot like this work (and not have Button imprisoned by the CDC and used as a test subject), but once that genie is out of the bottle, it doesn't go back. So... Button is randomly a shmuck and we accelerate through the last years of his life because we're out of time or something. Dangit, I'd have been interested in an "old" young Button. Then they also have some lame line that seems to be a moral about following your heart or something. But hasn't Button's heart been to hang out with Cate Blanchett as much as possible? Why the hell is he leaving when he was defined earlier as practically stalking her? Sigh.
Didn't see Milk or Frost/Nixon yet.
Anyway, go Slumdog Millionaire, pledge yourself to the darkness and let the fools who stand in its way be destroyed by the power it possesses.
Edit: And it won. Well, against that competition, good. WALL-E should totally have taken The Reader's slot, though. That'd be tough to decide between. (I can also see giving The Dark Knight at least a nom slot even if it shouldn't win, a la LOTR: Two Towers getting a nod in 2003.)