Last night I went to the pictures! Yes actually to a Cinematograph. And they have talking pictures and Everything! As you can tell, it's been a while. Andrew accompanied me just in case the experience was just too overwhelming. We went to see Stephen Daldrey's film THE READER which has won Kate Winslet seven acting awards so far with an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress yet to be announced. There is more to the film than our Kate. But not much.Germany 1958. Michael (David Kross), aged 15, is taken ill on the street and is helped by an anonymous woman in her mid-thirties (Kate Winslet). After recovering from scarlet fever he returns to the woman's flat to thank her but when he sees her undressing he runs away. On a later visit he helps the woman move coal to her upstairs flat. After he bathes she seduces him and soon they are meeting regularly in the flat establishing a routine of Michael reading to her from his school books followed by some love-making.

Michael knows nothing about her except her name is Hanna and she works as a conductor on the city trams. They even manage a weekend in the country, they visit a remote church where Michael watches as Hanna becomes emotional listening to a school choir at the altar. On their return, Hanna is told by her boss that she is being promoted to an office job. Michael visits the flat to find it deserted and is disconsolate at Hanna's disappearance.In 1966 Michael is studying law at university. His Professor invites his students to witness a trial of six female SS Guards who escorted a death march of prisoners from Auschwitz in 1944 and later did nothing as the prisoners died in a burning church. He is shocked to see Hanna is one of the accused. During the trial he learns that Hanna Schmitz left a promising job at Siemens to join the SS soon after the war started and while at Auschwitz joined in with the other guards in selecting new prisoners to be sent to their death.

Michael also is poleaxed to hear that she would select certain weak or puny prisoners to read to her before sending them also to their deaths. The other guards have said that Hanna was the author of an SS report into the prisoners deaths and when the judge demands a sample of her writing, Hanna admits to writing the report. By now Michael has realised the secret that Hanna has let rule and ruin her life but he does nothing to intercede on her behalf and she is sentenced to life instead of the ten year imprisonment.
An adult Michael (Ralph Fiennes) is haunted by his relationship with Hanna and after his divorce, he discovers his old books at the family home. He narrates them onto tapes and sends them regularly to Hanna in prison. Hanna uses the tapes to finally learn to read and write, borrowing the relevant books from the library and learning each word as she hears them. As Hanna's release date nears, Michael is contacted as her only correspondent and he agrees to meet her again. But is redemption at hand - and for who?

I loved Daldrey's last film THE HOURS and he is here reunited with David Hare who adapted that literary work for the screen. However for me, lightning didn't strike twice. The film moves at a frustratingly funereal pace and it certainly isn't helped by the lugubrious performance of Ralph Fiennes. Yes it certainly captures Michael's frozen spiritual deadness but it goes nowhere and there are several occasions when a possible ending is swerved past as Fiennes' limpid gaze stares into the mid-distance some more.Another major problem was that I could not believe that David Kross could grow into Ralph Fiennes as they are quite dissimilar. This is certainly not the fault of Kross who gives an excellent performance, sympathetic and involving and it's a shame he has been left out of the award-giving.

There is another performance too which is worthy of serious praise. Lena Olin appears twice, first in the courtroom as an old woman who survived the church fire and towards the end of the film as her grown daughter who Michael meets in New York. In this short scene Lena Olin shows what an excellent actress she is, flinty and defiant as Michael's seeks 'closure' for Hanna.

There are also fine supporting performances from Bruno Ganz as the law professor, Burghart Klaussner as the trial judge and Linda Bassett as the prison outreach officer who contacts Michael about Hanna's release.But it's Kate Winslet's film all the way. She has always conveyed a depth and interior life to her screen characters but here she makes Hanna a fascinating enigma. Even in the much-publicised sex scenes in the first section of the film it is marvellous how she can be seen to bare all but at the same time her face and body language show that she is still wary and guarded. Hanna is at the mercy of a secret that she will do anything to avoid being detected and Kate Winslet captures perfectly the character's inner turmoil. You can understand how Hanna would blend into her environment to avoid being detected - be it as a factory worker, a tram conductor or an SS guard.

The film has been much criticised for daring to suggest that an SS guard should be portrayed in a sympathetic light but I am not sure that was Daldrey's intention. It is based on a German novel after all and is more concerned with the responses of the German post-war generation to the country's recent past. Surely what is endlessly fascinating about Hitler's Germany is that it's worse excesses were carried out by ordinary men and women?

I just wish I enjoyed the film more.