The Reader - discussion guide

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Summary

Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes) is a German lawyer with a troubled past, which is revealed to the audience in flashbacks. As a teenager, Michael (David Kross) has a brief love affair with Hanna Schmitz, a woman twice his age. Their relationship is mostly physical, until Hanna asks Michael to read to her. They share many books together – Michael reading, Hanna listening – and their love deepens. The relationship ends suddenly when Hanna disappears.

Eight years later, Michael is a law student. He attends a Nazi war crime trial and is horrified when he sees Hanna in the dock. Unbeknownst to Michael, Hanna was an SS guard at a death camp during the war. As the case unfolds, Michael realises that Hanna is withholding information that could help her case because she is too ashamed to reveal it.

Background

The Reader has been the subject of much debate and critical acclaim. Winslet’s performance has won her a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress, BAFTA Award for Best Actress, Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress and Academy Award for Best Actress. Kross also received praise for his portrayal of Michael. Director Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot) commends him as an ’emotionally available and fiercely intelligent’ young actor.[1]

Some critics have slammed the film for trivialising the Holocaust and being emotionally detached. Other critics have praised the film for its complexity and subtlety. The Sun Online notes that, ‘It is the kind of movie that will have you questioning your reactions,’[2] and Time Out says, ‘its issues are infinite and moveable.’[3] The trailer announces: ‘Behind the mystery lies a truth that will make you question everything you believe’.

Fiennes notes that there is a distance created between the viewer and Hanna: ‘The story deliberately is not generous in asking us to understand Hanna. We’re asked to understand Michael’s journey trying to understand Hanna.’[4] Winslet felt strongly that she should portray Hanna as a human being, capable of ‘great love and affection and warmth.’[5] Daldry says the film is ‘about the banality of evil’.[6] The viewer goes through the same inner battle as Michael – it is right to sympathise with a Nazi?

Questions for Discussion

1. Did you like the film? Was it what you were expecting? How did it make you feel?

2. What did you think of the lead performances, and why?

3. Why do you think the story was told from Michael’s perspective? Did you find you could relate to Michael?

4. What were your initial impressions of Hanna? To what extent did you identify with her?

5. What did you make of the dynamics of their relationship? Do you think Hanna loved Michael?

6. Have you known anyone who was illiterate? How did you respond to the shame Hanna connected with this?

7. Hanna keeps her past a secret and ignores her guilt. How do you think we should deal with our own past mistakes?

8. How did you feel about Hanna after the trial? Did you want to understand her or condemn her? How do you think you would have reacted if you were Michael?

9. What did you think of the way Hanna dealt with her prison sentence? Do you think she felt remorse for her actions during the war?

10. What do you think the filmmakers were trying to communicate by inspiring sympathy for an S.S. guard?

11. To what extent do ‘good people’ and ‘bad people’ exist? To what extent are all of us the same?

12. Stephen Daldry believes that ‘redemption was . . . never really a possibility for [Hanna]’.[7] Do you think this is true? Why/why not? Did you want Michael to forgive Hanna and to start writing to her?

13. The Bible says that we have all done wrong things, but that God offers all of us redemption:

    For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. (Romans 3:23-24)

How might this have applied to Hanna? How might it apply to us?

 

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