The Reader

I was most interested in the boy who plays Kate Winselt's lover in The Reader. David Kross is a German actor who has a baby face and plays a 16-year-old who meets up with the older jaded Winslet, so at first you are horrified when you see Winslet's Hanna and Kross' Michael naked and hungrily grasping each other. As the movie progresses, though, it seems less lascivious and more a story about a very sad woman -- I had sympathy for all the characters, even Hanna who does unexplainable horrific acts as an S.S. officer. Kate Winslet is great as a the harsh perfunctory Hanna, and watching her listening so rapturously to great literature is mesmerizing. Ralph Fiennes is the adult Michael and is of course good, as he is in everything, but I think the best part of the movie is the young David Kross. The movie is based on the book by Bernhard Schlink's book of the same name.