The Reader

Behind the mystery lies a truth that will make you question everything you know.

Plot Summary

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.

7.5 /10

2008

US

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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

defiant

disheartening

embarrassed

tragic