The Reader (2008)
Release Date
2008-12-10
Rating
8
Duration
124 min
Countries
Keywords
based on novel or book germany war crimes women's prison trial female prisoner reading aloud love affair cynical law student teenage sexuality older woman younger man relationship reading to someone secret lover shame literacy frantic west germany courtroom drama complex cautionary depressing cruel disheartening embarrassed tragic
Qualities
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.
