Subtleties and nuances that exist in the novel and which can be presented in the first-person narrative are missing from the more straightforward movie. Michael learns nothing more about her until 1966, when she goes on trial for contributing to the murder of 300 Jews while she was serving as an SS guard at Auschwitz.įor the most part, the movie is a faithful adaptation of the book when it comes to large plot points, but the devil is in the details. Eventually, perhaps recognizing that she is holding Michael back, Hanna vanishes. It is brief but passionate and combines sex with episodes in which Michael reads passages of literature to her. After recovering from the illness, Michael seeks her out to thank her and the two begin an affair. She finds him doubled over near her apartment and brings him home. She is a somewhat reclusive toll taker on trams he is a 15-year old boy coming down with Scarlet Fever. Michael's first meeting with Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet) occurs in West Berlin in 1958. The film is told bookend style (an unnecessarily convoluted approach), with the lead character, Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes as an adult David Kross as a teenager) reflecting on his life from his current time period, which is 1995. And, while not making excuses for those who participated in the Holocaust, The Reader becomes the latest Nazi-related motion picture to question whether redemption is an option or a possibility for someone who has committed monstrous acts. Based on the novel by Bernhard Schlink, the film asks big questions about the nature of evil and how sin, like disease, can be contagious. The Reader is closer to a near miss than a rousing success but, on balance, this is still worth seeing for those who enjoy complexity and moral ambiguity within the context of a melodrama.
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