Performed in 2 Nutcracker Preview Shows Today

I have two comments for this evening.

First, nothing ages you faster then an injured back.

Second, The Reader, starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes, is a very sad movie. It starts off very hot with the affair between Hanna and Michael which involved plenty of sex and nudity as you can imagine, before progressing to the trial. Hanna is on trial because a Jewish women wrote a book about her experiences in the concentration camps where Hanna served as a guard. Michael, a law student, at the time, helplessly watches the trial with his class.

The film is so depressing in the end because of unfulfilled emotional needs in the characters. In the end, they both must pay the consequences for not being honest and not taking the steps to make it right between them. I can't imagine why two people in love would reject their feelings only to have them control and monopolize their lives.

Does fate come into play here? I've never truly believed in fate, yet in the context of this film I can find no other explanation. Perhaps this ending is to show what might happen if you try to defy fate. When two people belong together but choose to close themselves up, they live a life of pent up misery.

Or perhaps the director just wants to torment us.