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This morning I heard on the radio that Kate Winslet had won an Oscar for her role in this film, well deserved.
The film itself is full of pathos and beautifully delivered. It is the story of a young boy, Michael (David Kross) being befriended by an older woman, Hanna (Kate Winslet). She helps him in the street when he is in the early stages of Scarlet fever, cleaning him up and taking him home. Once he is better he goes to thank her and a relationship develops which involves for the larger part him reading to her. Later on as a young man Michael is training in law and taken to see war trials only to find Hanna is in the dock, for her part as a guard when over 200 people where killed in a fire.
I found this part of the film slightly disturbing, the way the trial was protrayed it seemed that justice seeming to be done was far more important that justice actually being done. I can’t say anything more than that without giving away the plot, however if you watch the film you will understand what I am saying here.
An older Michael (Ralph Fiennes) finally meets Hanna again near the end of the film after striking up a new kind of relationship, but there is no happy ending as the mixed emotions of the preceding years have taken their toil on both of them in differing ways.
Well worth going to see and I would imagine that it is one of those films that you see more in each time you watch and I for one will be watching it again at some point.
