The Reader is a 2008 romantic drama film directed by Stephen Daldry and written by David Hare, based on the 1995 German novel of the same name by Bernhard Schlink. It stars Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, and David Kross. It was the last film for producers Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack, both of whom died prior to its release. Production began in Germany in September 2007, and the film opened in limited release on December 10, 2008. The film tells the story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a 15-year-old in 1958, has a sexual relationship with an older woman, Hanna Schmitz. She disappears only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a guard at a Nazi concentration camp. Michael realizes that Hanna is keeping a personal secret she believes is worse than her Nazi past – a secret which, if revealed, could help her at the trial. Some historians criticised the film for making Schmitz an object of the audience's sympathy and accused the filmmakers of Holocaust revisionism. Although it received mixed reviews, Winslet and Kross, who plays the young Michael, received acclaim for their performances; Winslet won a number of awards for her role, including the Academy Award for Best Actress. The film was nominated for several other major awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture. Plot In 1995 Berlin, Michael Berg watches a train pass, flashing back to a tram ride from 1958. Michael, 15, feels sick, getting off the tram to walk in the rain. Vomiting beside an apartment building, tram conductor Hanna Schmitz, 36, finds him, cleans him up and helps him home. Michael is diagnosed with scarlet fever. Michael visits Hanna with flowers once he is better, and they proceed to have a summer affair. She asks him to read to her from his school books. On a bicycle trip, they visit a church with a choir and Hanna is emotional. Toward the end of summer, Hanna is promoted to the tram's head offices, they argue, she sends him away, packs her things and leaves. When Michael finds her apartment vacant he is devastated. Again in 1995, Michael is reserved around women, divorced, and estranged from his daughter. In 1966, a Heidelberg University Law School student, Michael observes a trial (similar to the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials) of several former