Its Post WWII Germany when a teenage boy, Michael (David Kross) is vomiting on a rainy street. Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet) stoops to assist, returning him home to his family, and later, he thanks her with flowers. But she wants more. She’s a ticket taker on the trolley by day and a virginity taker of the “kid”- as she calls him – by night. Beyond that, she is obsessed with the idea of Michael reading to her, everything from Homer’s “Odyssey” to “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and usually in the bath – they have a very clean relationship. Young Michael is an exceptional actor in the discovery of his anatomy – the exhilaration of becoming a man – isn’t it a wonderful life. His eager face even resembles a young Val Kilmer, though in the movie he grows up to be Ralph Fiennes. Now years later – and a law student – he witnesses a trial in which Hanna comes under scrutiny for decisions she made regarding concentration camps. Suddenly everything turns into an evaluation of justice. Is withholding certain information worth changing the outcome of the perpetrator’s life? While the movie’s ‘secret’ is predictable, the audience soon realizes that the very secret is a crime in itself. Which is worse: Being a murderer or being illiterate? And which is the bigger cover-up? If you love someone who is guilty, do you become entangled in their guilt? It’s a story that probes the depths of moral seriousness which would explain why it made for a best selling novel by Bernhard Sclink and translated into forty languages. But as a very solid film, one can’t be sure that a contemporary audience will be in the mood for something quite so solemn. Three tiaras
