The Reader

The question that this amazing film asks is, What if someone you love turns out to be a monster? Kate Winslet is stunning (at times beyond acting) as Hanna Schmitz, who you find out half way through the film was a Nazi guard at a concentration camp. You see this unfold though Michael's eyes, who, as a 15 year-old, had an affair with her. He is now in law school, attending a trial for war crimes, and he discovers her past in the courtroom. He is heartbroken, and at one point thinks he should help her when she admits to writing the directions for the crimes she is guilty of...but he knows she is illiterate; he lets it go, and does not try to help her. The older Michael, played by Ralph Fiennes, records books on tape to send to Hanna in prison and wrestles with his conscience as a second-generation German trying to cope with his complicit guilt. At the end of the film Fiennes and the incredible Lena Olin have a scene that cuts to the core of his survivor guilt, the other big theme of the movie.

This film was directed by Stephen Daldry and playwright David Hare, collaborators on The Hours, one of my all time favorite films.