From All Movie Guide: Completely riveting, yet about as emotionally distant as the chilly former concentration camp guard portrayed in the film by Kate Winslet, director Stephen Daldry's Oscar-bait follow up to his 2002 award winner, The Hours, stays coolly detached despite featuring some pretty steamy sex scenes and dealing with a highly confrontational subject matter. Still, emotional impact is admittedly not the be-all and end-all of a great film, and those in search of an absorbing, intellectually stimulating study of German Holocaust guilt will certainly have something to talk about after the credits roll.

The story opens in post-World War II Germany, where young student Michael Berg (David Kross) has fallen ill with scarlet fever while walking home from school. Gently guided home by a compassionate older woman named Hanna (Winslet), Michael convalesces for a few months before returning to Hanna's apartment with a bouquet of flowers. Before long, the two have become lovers: Hanna instructing Micha...

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