Kate Winslet, after six nominations, finally took home an Oscar this year for her work in "The Reader." She was sensual and mysterious as the 36-year-old German who has a sex-fuelled affair with a 15-year-old boy after World War II and then hard and confused as the 44-year-old woman on trial for war crimes when the boy has become a law student. The plot is preposterous, though. We are led to believe that keeping a pretty banal secret is more important than going to jail for decades and taking the blame for the deaths of hundreds of Jews. This is a film that could have had a lot to say about history and responsibility, but the emotional power is blunted by the disappointingly superficial script. Perhaps the German novel should have been adapted by Germans, who might have had more reason to confront their own past and the hold it still has over the country.
