BOTTOM LINE: Ultimately flat, and uncomfortably melding a touching love story with the seriousness of a Nazi war crime trial, “The Reader” may have been Oscar-worthy due to its ideas on paper but it does not resonate with the thematic gravity that it should, largely due to its dry and uninteresting execution.

THE GOOD: Much of what works in “The Reader” is its attempt to cover so much thematic ground. As a whole, the film speaks to dealing with the consequences of your actions, whether they be for love, life or for your fellow human being. Ralph Fiennes plays Michael Berg, a German lawyer who recalls the short love affair he had in his youth with Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet). The affair had a profound impact on his personal life and subsequent relationships to the point where he never forgot about her, even after the heart break of when she suddenly disappeared from his life. Years later, as a law student, Berg comes across her again, but this time he witnesses her on trial for Nazi war crimes when she worked as an SS Prison Guard in a concentration camp. Schmitz allows herself to be setup and imprisoned for life by the other defendants, rather than admit to her illiteracy, a fact which would have worked heavily in her favour as the evidence convicting her was a written prison report. Berg knows this but does not come forward. Berg never really moves on with his life, and eventually starts sending her audio tapes of himself reading books to her as he used to do in his youth. Schmitz begins to see the positivity of the situation in prison, but when Berg eventually goes to meet her, the reunion is not as warm as she hoped. Before she is released, Schmitz hangs herself, leaving Berg to contemplate the meaning of everything that has transpired. The film has the potential for strong emotional and thematic resonance, least of which being the stellar cast in Fiennes, Winslet and David Kross (who plays the young Berg). There is a sense in the film that life does not have easy answers; it is not easy to do the right thing because it requires an enormous amount of courage and/or sacrifice. In this respect, “The Reader” has some noble intentions and some cerebral engagement.

THE BAD: “The Reader” suffers from a very dull execution from director Stephen Daldry. The themes and plot of this movie are very strong emotionally, yet at no point throughout the film are those emotions driven home through the characters. You get your obligatory scenes of tears and thoughtful retrospection, particularly by David Kross and Ralph Fiennes in performing the role of Michael Berg, but there is nothing here that will move you. Melding their touching love story with another big emotional and overwhelming plot in the Nazi war crime trial is also a mistake, largely due to the fact that this story pulls you in to another direction entirely with its meanings of genocide and death. It is hard to feel empathy for a Nazi prison guard, despite her involvement and lack of understanding and sacrifice to help the prisoners more under her care, or with her connection to Berg. One gets the feeling that all of this works much better in the novel this film is based on. A novel can cover so much ground in the details that this story requires. “The Reader” unfortunately cannot hope to execute this faithfully, but even so, a better effort could have been made to do this with this film.