The Reader is excellent. Kate Winslet plays Hannah Schmidt and Ralph Fiennes plays the older Michael Berg (David Kross the younger). Acting is excellent. Michael Berg is a young man, 15 going on 16, who falls ill in front of Hannah's apartment building in Berlin in the mid 1950's.She is in her 30's. Hannah helps him recover enough  to walk home and walks him home. Turns out he has scarlet fever and is ill for many months. Once he recovers, he goes to visit her to thank her. Over the course of the summer they become lovers. So there is lots of sex, just a warning. The sex is always preluded with him reading to her from classic literature. She insists upon this.   In mid 60's he is a law student and is asked to join a special seminar wherein the professor takes the students to a Nazi war trial. On trial are six women accused of being SS guards at Auschwitz. Hannah is one of these women. Mike is devastated and does not know how   to deal with his feelings. He has a chance to help her when the other guards falsely accuse her of being their leader. She is the only one who admits to the war crimes they committed. The others lie and admit nothing. However Mike is too weak (in my opinion) to make the correct moral choice. She is sent to prison for life.   He makes up for his behavior somewhat by his actions once she is in prison.   Excellent film that will make you think. There is some discussion by the law students about the collective guilt of all war-time Germans and the reactions of the different students varies. There is also the consideration of how the women SS guards react and how the viewer of the film reacts to Hannah. Her actions were awful but she admits to them and takes on guilt for the others who refuse to admit any guilt.