The Reader

Our protagonist, played by Miou-Miou, is a mischievous, whimsical and smart young woman who is looking for an occupation that will engage her. The adventures she has during her fantasies of what the job as a travelling reader would be, are charming little trips that we take with her. This is a smart and engaging little film. I dare you to not fall in love with her or this film.

There's more than a little touch of Pirandello in the night about this entry in which a young woman, Constance, is not only reading a book entitled The Reader, to her husband in bed but also projects herself on to the eponymous character, Marie, and acts out either her own (Constance) fantasies or those of the fictional Marie or a combination of both. Given the task of carrying the film Miou-Miou is more than up to it and freshness is added by both the location, Arles, albeit little more than the picturesque narrow streets traversed by Marie between gigs, and the supporting cast, relatively unknown outside France though certainly well respected - especially Brigitte Catillon and Patrick Chesnais - within it. It's unquestionably a film that will divide opinion between those who will surrender to its whimsy, offbeat charm and dialogue and those who will denounce it as soft-porn with a press agent. As for me, I love Brigitte Catillon in anything.

I just rewatched this as I was converting it from my ancient cable taped vhs to dvd-r. Shinwa's comments describe this film about as well as one can in a capsule review. Or mabye I'm just becoming older and more curmudgeonly. The literary components seem like they were derived in the manner of Surrealist poetry-- chop up a bunch of sentences cut from books and magazines and pull them from a bag one at a time. Certainly there is no moral triumph taking place because Constance/Marie won't read Sade to a bunch of geezers. In fact, it's a cop-out to the "profession" she's field testing, kind of like a librarian not adding books to the collection because of personal bias. What I enjoyed most about this film is the soundtrack, and the wonderful settings. Love those old world cramped French streets and crumbling buildings with bad plumbing, which we see every time Constance goes trekking between appointments. Now if you want real French comedy, watch for Alexandre le bienheureux if it's ever released on video.

This is a slightly bizarre film, a bit like a pretentious European soft porno movie from the 1970ies, minus the sleaze. I have seen it before in a dubbed version, back when it first came out, and didn't get it -- the movie relies heavily on the original dialogue. This time I saw the French version, and, although I still can't say that I managed to penetrate into the story's every nook and cranny, I can testify that the dialogue is quite witty, the wit is farcical, and Miou-Miou is adequately sensual. And that's more than you can say for most movies these days. It won't make it into my personal list of desert island films, but I'm genuinely glad to have given it another go.

Even the most ardent bibliophiles have to set aside their books when the theater lights go down, but this playful French import at least offers some consolation, in a sense attempting to approximate with the written word what Juzo Itami did with noodles and egg yolk in 'Tampopo'. One of the joys of a good book is of course the vicarious thrill of escapism, something Miou-Miou discovers firsthand while reading Raymond Jean's novel (of the same name as the film) and imagining herself as its protagonist: a professional reader who finds her choice of books somehow reflecting the idiosyncrasies of each client. This is clearly a film working on several levels at once, but a refresher course in European literature may be required to fully appreciate it. The visual scheme is offbeat and arresting, bringing the pages of each selected novel to colorful life, but the script is perhaps too infatuated with its own love of language, creating an elegant and infuriating puzzle where the patterns of each separate piece are more attractive than the finished picture.