The Reader is a 2008 German-American romantic drama film directed by Stephen Daldry, written by David Hare on the basis of the 1995 German novel of the same name by Bernhard Schlink, and starring Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, David Kross, Bruno Ganz and Karoline Herfurth.
The film tells the story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a 15-year-old in 1958, has a sexual relationship with an older woman, Hanna Schmitz. She disappears only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a guard at a Nazi concentration camp. Michael realizes that Hanna is keeping a personal secret she believes is worse than her Nazi past – a secret which, if revealed, could help her at the trial. Some historians criticised the film for making Schmitz an object of the audience's sympathy and accused the filmmakers of Holocaust revisionism.
The Reader was the last film for producers Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack, both of whom died prior to its release. Production began in Germany in September 2007, and the film opened in limited release on December 10, 2008. It received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for Winslet and Kross's performances, but criticism for its direction and screenplay.
For her performance, Winslet won the Academy Award for Best Actress, the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role.
In 1995 Berlin, Michael Berg watches a train pass, flashing back to a tram ride from 1958. Michael, then 15, feels sick, getting off the tram to walk in the rain. Vomiting beside an apartment building, he is found by tram conductor Hanna Schmitz, 36, who cleans him up and helps him home. Michael is diagnosed with scarlet fever.
Michael visits Hanna with flowers once he is better, and they proceed to have a summer affair. She asks him to read to her from his school books. On a bicycle trip, they visit a church with a choir and Hanna becomes emotional. Toward the end of summer, Hanna is promoted to the tram's head office. They argue, she sends him away, packs her things and leaves. When Michael finds her apartment vacant, he is devastated.
Michael in 1995 is shown to be reserved around women, divorced and estranged from his daughter.
In 1966, now a Heidelberg University Law School student, Michael observes a trial (similar to the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials) of several former SS guards accused of letting 300 Jewish women and children perish in a burning church during the death march near Kraków, Poland. Michael is horrified to see Hanna is one of the defendants. Ilana Mather and her mother Rose give the key evidence. Ilana testifies Hanna had women from the camp read to her in the evenings. Rose testifies that, when the church caught fire from a bombing raid, all but she and Ilana died, as the guards locked the doors.
Hanna, unlike her co-defendants, admits Auschwitz was an extermination camp and that she and the others chose 10 women for each month's Selektion. When questioned on the church fire, no one was able to explain why they had not unlocked the doors. The guards' report said they did not know about it until morning. Hanna admits this was a lie; they had kept the doors locked so that the prisoners could not escape.
Hanna's co-defendants then all lie that she was in charge and that she wrote the report. Hanna denies this, insisting all the guards present agreed on the contents of the report. The lead judge asks for a handwriting sample. Ashamed, she avoids this test by testifying she wrote the report. Watching the trial from the public gallery, Michael realizes Hanna's secret: she is illiterate, and so she could not have read or written the report.
When Michael tells his law professor, the professor tells him his moral obligation is to inform the court. The professor is frustrated with Michael for not having spoken to Hanna, so Michael tries to visit her in prison, but cannot face her and leaves her waiting. She receives a life sentence for 300 cases of murder, while the other defendants are sentenced to four years and three months each only for aiding and abetting. Michael weeps in the gallery.
Years later, Michael puts the books he had read to Hanna on tape and regularly sends them to her in prison. She borrows the same books from the prison library, teaching herself to read and write using Michael's voice. She writes to Michael, gradually with more and more literacy, but he never responds.
In 1988, a prison official contacts Michael, requesting his help with Hanna's transition into society following her impending release. Initially refusing, he later visits to say he has found her a place and a job. Pleased to see him, she tries to reconnect, but Michael is distant. He asks if she thinks about the past and Hanna asks if he means their past. When he says he means the war, she says that what she feels and thinks does not matter as, "The dead are still dead." Both are left upset.
Michael arrives at the prison with flowers on Hanna's release day, but is told she has hanged herself. She left a crude will, gifting a tea tin with cash and the money in her bank account to Ilana.
Michael finds Ilana in New York City, admitting his connection to Hanna and its long-lasting impact. He tells her about Hanna's illiteracy, but she tells him to seek catharsis elsewhere. Michael tells her what Hanna left her, showing her the tea tin, but Ilana refuses the money. He suggests it be donated to a Jewish literacy organization in Hanna's name, and Ilana agrees he should do it if he wishes. She keeps the tin, as it is like one she once had.
The film ends in 1995 with Michael driving his daughter Julia to Hanna's grave at the church in the country they had once visited, telling her their story.
- Kate Winslet as Hanna Schmitz
- Ralph Fiennes as Michael Berg
- David Kross as younger Michael Berg
- Bruno Ganz as Professor Rohl, a Holocaust survivor
- Alexandra Maria Lara as Ilana Mather, a concentration camp survivor
- Lena Olin as older Ilana Mather
- Lena Olin as Rose Mather, Ilana's mother
- Vijessna Ferkic as Sophie, Michael's friend at school
- Karoline Herfurth as Marthe, Michael's friend at university
- Burghart Klaußner as the judge at Hanna's trial
- Linda Bassett as Mrs. Brenner, prison official
- Hannah Herzsprung as Julia, Michael Berg's daughter in 1995
- Jeanette Hain as Brigitte, Michael's girlfriend in 1995
- Susanne Lothar as Carla Berg, Michael's mother
- Matthias Habich as Peter Berg, Michael's father
- Florian Bartholomäi as Thomas Berg, Michael's brother
- Alissa Wilms as Emily Berg, Michael's sister
- Sylvester Groth as the prosecutor at Hanna's trial
- Fabian Busch as the defense lawyer at Hanna's trial
- Volker Bruch as Dieter Spenz, a student in the seminar group
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