The Reader

Based on the bestselling novel (an Oprah Book Club selection) by Bernhard Schlink, director Stephen Daldry's Best Picture nominee—a May-September romance that later morphs into a harrowing courtroom drama—stars Kate Winslet in an Oscar-winning performance as Hanna, a taciturn thirtysomething trolley ticket taker who engages in a clandestine affair with Michael (David Kross), an intelligent, sensitive, and handsome 15-year-old in post-WWII Germany. Hannah is not big on pillow talk, preferring Michael to read to her before and after sex. After the romance ends abruptly, eight years pass before Michael sees Hannah again, this time on trial for war crimes as a guard at the infamous Auschwitz death camp. Part of Michael, now a law student, is repulsed by the testimony he hears, but another part remains captivated by the woman who ushered him into manhood. Intercut throughout are segments set decades later in which the older Michael is played by Ralph Fiennes as an intellectually developed but emotionally stunted man, either unable or unwilling to connect with other women. Viewers who relate to Winslet's Hanna will be affected by the film's conclusion, although Fiennes' Michael remains something of a cipher. David Hare's compelling and thought-provoking screenplay raises difficult questions and, to its credit, eschews easy or obvious answers. Recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include 42 minutes of deleted scenes, the 23-minute “making-of” featurette “Adapting a Timeless Masterpiece” (23 min.), “Kate Winslet on the Art of Aging Hanna Schmitz” with the star (13 min.), “A Conversation with David Kross & Stephen Daldry” with the costar and the director (10 min.), a “Coming to Grips with the Past” featurette with production designer Brigitte Broch (7 min.), “A New Voice” featurette with composer Nico Muhly (4 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a fine extras package for this Best Picture nominee.] (E. Hulse)