The Reader (2008)

To start off, I will say that I thought a lot higher of this film than I usually think of romance dramas. It was thought provoking and very low-key, with Kate Winslet playing the character of Hanna Schmitz and both David Kross and Ralph Fiennes playing Michael Berg, a man who as a boy meets Hanna in a 1958 Germany and begins a passionate, but forbidden love affair with her, only to find his heart broken when she suddenly leaves with no goodbye.
Years later, while Michael is studying law at college, he attends a Nazi war crimes trial and is shocked to encounter Hanna once more... on the defense stand.
The Reader is an adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's novel of the same title, and was directed by Stephen Daldry. It deals quite intriguingly with the the generation gap in 1958 between the Germans who experienced the war (Hanna) and the country's younger citizens (Michael) who did not. The idea that the most average and seemingly guiltless people, who may even be your neighbors, are hiding skeletons in their closets and concealing their secrets is a fascinating thing here, and is executed well.
I liked how we saw things from Hanna's point of view, and experienced, along with Michael at the trial, that she was guilty of her crimes, but was not necessarily a wicked person because of them. One of the messages within this is that though you might involve yourself in a war to do what you believe is a good and right thing, you may someday realize you have done or are doing something quite the opposite. Hindsight is always 20/20, as they say.
As you can see, this film is not a light one (watch 17 Again according to Lindsay if that's what you're looking for!), and some scenes can really drag you down emotionally. Parts of it are a bit slow, and in the day to day lives of the characters there was an abundance of thinking and regretting... regretting and moping... hopefully you get the idea.
If weighty movies don't phase you and melancholy, dead-end romances set in bleak, post-war Germany sound appealing, then you probably will not see much to dislike about this film. Keep in mind that it is rated R for its sexuality and nudity and see for yourself why Kate Winslet won the Oscar for Best Actress in The Reader.
-Dani