A must watch movie. Review on The Reader Movie

This is one movie that one watches with rapt attention, mesmerized by the performances of the actors and leaves with moist eyes. Men-women relationships can be intense and this movie just spreads in front of you the beauty and pain of it all.

The movie is based on a 1995 German novel by Bernhard Schlink and directed by Stephen Daldry. But of course those are irrelevant information to viewers like us.

The Plot:

The film begins with one Michael Berg, a lawyer (played by Ralph Fiennes) preparing breakfast for a woman with whom he had a one night stand and then drifts into flashback mode, when a young Michael Berg gets off a tram and vomits at the entrance of a dilapidated building. A tram conductor Hanna Schmitz (played by Kate Winslet) takes him to her shoddy apartment and helps him to go back home. After several months Michael Berg (then fifteen years old and played by David Kroff) guest to Hanna's apartment to thank her. Thereafter, a steamy affair between them starts, which lasts for several months. During this period Michael reads out to Hanna on her insistence, the stories that he was studying like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the Odyssey etc. The nude and sex scenes are very aesthetically shot.

However, while Michael enrolls himself in a law school Hanna moves out of his life abruptly.

While in law school, as part of a special seminar  the students observe a trial of several women accused of letting 300 Jewish women die in a burning church when they were  guards on the death march following the 1944 evacuation of a concentration camp. Michael finds that Hanna is one of the defendants.

The key evidence is the testimony of Ilana Mather author of a memoir of how she and her mother, who also testifies, survived. Hanna, unlike her co-defendants, admits that Auschwitz was an extermination camp and that the ten women she chose every month were gassed to death. She denies authorship of a report on the church fire, despite pressure from the other defendants, but then admits it rather than complying with a demand to provide a handwriting sample.

It then strikes Michael that Hanna is illiterate and has concealed it her whole life. The other female guards who claim she wrote the report were lying to place responsibility on Hanna.

Hanna receives a life sentence for her admitted leadership role in the church deaths while the other defendants are sentenced to four years and three months each. Michael meanwhile marries, has a daughter and divorces. Retrieving his books from the time of the affair with Hanna, he begins reading them into a tape recorder. He sends the cassette tapes and a recorder to Hanna. Eventually, she begins to check the books out from the prison library and teaches herself to read and write by following along with Michael's tapes. She starts writing back to Michael in brief, child-like notes.

Michael does not write back or visit, but keeps sending tapes, and years later a prison official telephones him to seek his help with Hanna's transition into society after her upcoming release. He finds a place for her to live and a job and finally visits Hanna a week before her release. In their meeting, Michael remains somewhat distant and confronts her about what she has learned from her past. Michael arrives at the prison on the date of Hanna's release with flowers. He discovers that Hanna has hanged herself and left a tea tin with cash in it with a note asking Michael to give the cash and some money in a bank account to Ilana.

Michael travels to New York. He meets Ilana  and confesses his relationship with Hanna. He tells her about the suicide note and Hanna's illiteracy. Ilana tells Michael there is nothing to be learned from the camps. Michael suggests that she donate the money to an organization that combats adult illiteracy, preferably a Jewish one, and she agrees, though she wryly notes "illiteracy isn't much of a Jewish problem." Ilana keeps the tea tin since it is similar to one stolen from her in Auschwitz.

The film ends with Michael getting back together with his daughter Julia at Hanna's grave and beginning to tell her his story.

The Cast

Kate Winslet as Hanna Schmitz had won the Oscar for best actress for the role she played in the film. Young Michael Berg played by David Kross also won accolades for his role.

Ralph Fiennes played the adult Michael Berg and Alexandria Maria Lara acted as young Ilana Mather.

The film itself had been nominated for several awards. A must watch film for all lovers of serious cinema. You can get the DVD easily from Starmark or Music World. If you don't want to spend on buying the DVD, you can rent it from bigflix. For becoming a member you can log on to https://bigflix.com.