Artist:
Title: Reader
Genre: Drama, Miscellaneous
Sub-Genre: Drama
Starring: Bruno Ganz, David Kross, Kate Winslet, Matthias Habich, Ralph Fiennes
Release Date: 4/14/2009
Directed By:
Rated: R
Product Type: DVD
Configuration: G: DVD
Catalog Number: 1000397
UPC: 796019819572
Technical Information
Street Date: 4/14/2009
DVD Release:
Studio: Weinstein Company ( WNCY )
Running Time: 0
Region: 1
Display:
SubTitles: English, Spanish
Audio:
Disc Info: Discs: 1 | Format: Ntsc
Case:
Language:
Cast: View Cast For READER
Crew: Art Director:Anja Fromm, Art Director:Anu Schwartz, Art Director:Erwin Prib, Art Director:Stefan Hauck, Art Director:Yesim Zolan, Casting:Jina Jay, Casting:Simone Baer, Cinematographer:Chris Menges, Cinematographer:Roger Deakins, Co-Executive Producer:Jason Blum, Co-producer:Carl L. Woebcken, Co-producer:Christoph Fisser, Co-producer:Henning Molfenter, Composer (Music Score):Nico Muhly, Director:Stephen Daldry, Executive Producer:Bob Weinstein, Executive Producer:Harvey Weinstein, Producer:Anthony Minghella, Producer:Donna Gigliotti, Producer:Redmond Morris, Producer:Sydney Pollack, Screenwriter:David Hare
Extras: Ws R Clr Dvd-Standard
Product Reviews
Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes star in The Hours director Stephen Daldry's haunting period drama concerning the relationship between a 15-year-old German boy and a mysterious woman twice his age, and the way that it grows doubly complex when the man reencounters the woman years later and discovers a shocking truth about her past. Based on author Bernhard Schlink's best-selling novel of the same name, the film opens on the character of Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes) in middle age -- cold, remote, and emotionally withdrawn. It then moves back in time to 1950s Berlin, where ailing teenager Michael (now played by David Kross) has fallen ill with fever, and is discovered in the street by Hanna, a woman in her thirties. After Michael recovers, the two immediately lapse into a torrid affair and Michael falls prey to the confusion of his own burgeoning sexuality. Their liaisons are often marked by Hanna's request that Michael read to her (hence the title). Later, when Michael returns to Hanna's flat and finds it deserted, her absence becomes an emotional blow for which he is completely unprepared, and indeed, scarred for life. The film then moves forward in time by eight years. Michael -- now a law student -- walks into a courtroom and comes across Hanna, one of a series of Nazi prison guards being tried for murderous war crimes during World War II. As he watches her on the witness stand, memories of their past experiences together bring him to the point of realization concerning a startling, long-buried truth about Hanna -- and Michael knows that if he divulges this information, it could modify the prison sentence handed out and dramatically alter her fate. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Product Notes
The Reader opens in post-WWII Germany when teenager Michael Berg becomes ill and is helped home by Hanna (Kate Winslet), a stranger twice his age. Michael recovers from scarlet fever and seeks out Hanna to thank her. The two are quickly drawn into a passionate but secretive affair. Years later, as a law student, Michael attends a trial to find that Hanna was an ex-Nazi Death Camp guard, accused of sending scores of women to their death in the gas chambers.
