Through some emotional testimony, we hear of Hanna’s past life as a concentration camp guard who, along with other defendants, selected prisoners to be executed. Rohl brings his class to a war crimes trial, and Michael is shocked to find Hanna Schmitz sitting there in the defendant’s chair. In 1966, Michael is at law school, studying under Professor Rohl (Bruno Ganz, who’s excellent here). Hanna, however, seems to be more interested in having Michael read to her (she’s illiterate – if the reading didn’t illustrate that enough, a scene in which she stares, perplexed, at a café menu should.) Soon, the affair breaks down, Michael’s sexual curiosity satisfied, and (if one hasn’t read much about the film in advance) we wonder where this is going… He returns to thank the woman, Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), catches a glimpse of her undressing, and thus begins a purely sexual affair that lasts for the summer. Germany, 1958: Michael Berg (David Kross) gets sick on the street (scarlet fever) and a kind woman cleans him up and helps him home. The film is mildly compelling and sumptuous to look at, but I found it unconvincing and potentially dangerous. The third act returns to the two characters, now much older, and the relationship. The second act takes place at a war crimes trial, and asks us what level of complicity in Nazi crimes is OK. The first (and best) act of the film is an intensely erotic portrait of an affair between a 16-year-old boy and a (considerably) older woman. Stephen Daldry’s The Reader, based on the novel by Bernhard Schlink, raises a lot of interesting moral questions, but it doesn’t quite know how to appropriately answer them. Don’t read any further if you want to go in fresh.) ![]() (Note: the following gives away a plot point central to this film, revealed about halfway through.
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