Nadia and I watched The Reader on DVD last night. I think it's a good movie and morally complicated, with no real resolution to its ambiguity. When the movie premiered a couple of years ago, I vaguely remembered a mild scandal concerning the relative ages of the protaganists(36 and 15), who have an affair. The historical context(post-war West Berlin) somewhat dampens this criticism, though some people will doubtless still find it uncomfortable. More troubling for me was the withholding of information by a central character during a subsequent trial that fundamentally affects the outcome. I was far more squeemish about that from an ethical point of view.
Aside from these dilemmas, The Reader is a well-made, well-acted movie that sweeps you along on a two-hour ride into a recognizable, though strangely unknowable recent past.
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