Intriguing and moving drama. In Berlin in 1958, 15-year-old Michael (David Kross) begins a brief, passionate love affair with 36-year-old tram conductor Hanna (Kate Winslet) that will come to haunt his entire life. Fast-forwarding to 1966, Michael is now a law student who gets to observe a trial of female SS guards who allowed 300 Jewish women to burn to death while locked in a church. He is horrified to see that Hanna is one of the accused women.
The film asks questions about morality and identity. One of the law students suggests that everyone in Germany is complicit in these crimes, and not just those in the court, but The Reader doesn’t try to offer any simplistic answers.
With his usual skill and elegance, Ralph Fiennes plays the older Michael. Bruno Ganz (who was Hitler in Downfall) plays a Holocaust survivor who teaches law), while Alexandra Maria Lara (Hitler's secretary in Downfall) gives evidence in court.
Directed by Stephen Daldry and written by David Hare, it’s a hugely powerful story that gains gravitas as it speeds through the decades towards the present.
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