The Reader

The Reader (2008)

6 mistakes

(4 votes)

Character mistake: During the seminar, Professor Rohl tells students that only 19 workers of Auschwitz were sentenced (in 1966). During the first trial of Nazis from Auschwitz, 39 were sentenced, including 23 persons condemned to death. The trial was in 1947 in Krakow.

wozi

Visible crew/equipment: When Michael is on the train you can see a crew member's face reflected on the glass window of the train.

dell

Factual error: In the streetcar scene a passenger is a soldier wearing a US Army green uniform with a CIB, Comat Infantry Badge. At the time US uniforms were brown and there is no plausible reason for this US soldier to be in that country.

Continuity mistake: When Michael comes back with a bunch of flowers, Hannah is ironing. One second she's ironing a girdle (I think it is), and the next second she's ironing a bra.

kh1616

Continuity mistake: As Michael stands, naked, facing the bath, Hannah stands behind him, naked also and with a towel, to dry him; all through this, water has continued to fill the bath, but, miraculously, it turns itself off.

kh1616

Continuity mistake: In the beginning, when Michael Berg is sick on the street in Neustadt and is leaning on a wall to throw up, he's near a closed door and is positioned to the right of that door. Next shot, from inside, shows the door now open and he is leaning to the left part of the door. (00:03:15)

Hanna Schmitz: You don't have the power to upset me. You don't matter enough to upset me.

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Question: When Michael & Hannah begin their affair Michael is 15 years old - in the courtroom scenes, the judge states that Hannah is now 43 years old and also states that the events at Auschwitz took place 20 years prior, which would've made her 23 at the time of Auschwitz and possibly around 23 when she left Michael - meaning that when they had the affair she was only about 7 years his senior. Therefore, when she's 43 in court, that makes him 36 years old when he's at university watching the court proceedings - but surely that's too old for what the film is trying to portray? It seems like he's in his 20's when he's at uni. I don't get it. Surely they couldn't have gotten their timelines so incorrect?

ljpom1

Answer: It is confusing in the movie because it seems like she went from the ticket taking job to the SS job after refusing the office job promotion, which would require literacy. When actually her SS job was prior to the ticket taker job. Was muddled in the movie.

Chosen answer: Where do you figure she was 23 when she left Michael? She had been working at the dispatch office for several years before she meet Michael (as indicated in the scene where her boss promotes her for her long service) -- so this is years after she was at Auschwitz. So she was in her mid-30s when she began the one-year affair with 15-year-old Michael. Then, while at university about 8 years later (when she is in her early 40s), he attends her trial. The timeline is fine.

MovieFan612 Premium member

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