The Reader

The story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a teenager in the late 1950s, had an affair with an older woman, Hanna, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. He alone realizes that Hanna is illiterate and may be concealing that fact at the expense of her freedom.

Cast

Ralph Fiennes

as Michael Berg

Kate Winslet

as Hanna Schmitz

David Kross

as Young Michael Berg

Lena Olin

as Rose Mather

Bruno Ganz

as Professor Rohl

Jeanette Hain

as Brigitte

Hannah Herzsprung

as Julia

Karoline Herfurth

as Marthe

Volker Bruch

as Dieter Spenz

Alexandra Maria Lara

as Young Ilana Mather

Reviews

CinemaSerf

David Kross is really effective in this tale of a young boy ("Michael") who encounters "Hanna" (Kate Winslet) as he shelters in her doorway from a rainstorm. In fairly short order, this fifteen year old boy becomes her lover; in return she gets him to read to her. He is soon infatuated and devastate...

badelf

I didn't turn this movie off after the beautiful sex scenes only because two others were watching it with me. The mere fact that "Germans" were speaking English totally destroyed the whole "suspend disbelief" for me. This film is an awful rendition by Brits of an award-winning German book. Perhaps, ...

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