The Reader / In the midst of the murderously competitive holiday/Oscar-nomination season, a gaggle of quality films surface, practically on top of each other, vying for audience attention. Of these, The Reader, from a controversial German novel, has opened to deeply divided reviews–for moral, not aesthetic reasons.

Anchored by a terrific performance from Kate Winslet, the story deepens into moral complexity from which an audience cannot escape. The novel’s structure, re-arranged by the reunited writer (David Hare) and director (Stephen Daldry), both of The Hours, aims to balance the equation: the title character, played by David Kross (as a youth) and Ralph Fiennes (as a middle-aged lawyer), is meant to be equally important as Winslet’s character Hanna, a German woman who in 1958 had an affair with the young man (his first), and who figures strongly in his memories. However, Winslet’s performance eclipses that of Fiennes and the movie becomes her story, not so innocent as that sounds.

Although flash-forwards alert us to the moral complexities, the first half of the movie is mostly about Michael, a precocious student who is more-or-less seduced and tutored by Hanna, who works as a West German tram conductor. The affair convinces Michael that he loves Hanna, who is much older, but he receives no confirmation from the woman, who nonetheless is brought alive by their assignations, all preceded or followed by Michael reading to her–mostly from books he’s studying in school (people who know Chekhov’s story about the lady and her dog will be alerted to developments later in this movie). Nonetheless, Hanna emerges as the more interesting character here.

The couple’s break-up is swift and, to Michael, mysterious. The woman who shares his delight in “reading” and who has skillfully introduced him to the pleasures of sexuality has meant much to him, and is fixed in his reveries. Hanna disappears and Michael goes on with his life, ending up, as it were, in law school, tutored by a wise old professor.

One day, observing cases in court with his class, Michael sees Hanna again, about to be tried for war crimes committed when she was a guard at Auschwitz, 13 years before she and Michael met. Among those crimes is the killing of 300 Jewish captives, locked in a burning building.

Agonized and conflicted, Michael watches the court proceedings, scarcely able to reconcile the Hanna he thought he knew with the one who testifies before the court. (The remainder of this review contains plot points that some readers may feel spoil the viewing experience–Eds.)

Because of her confession, Hanna is sentenced to prison. The older Michael confesses the affair, about which he’s never previously spoken, to his nearly-grown daughter. Attentive audience-members will see that Michael has information about Hanna that might have helped her case, and we come to see that Hanna has deliberately lied in her confession, sealing her fate.

Here the issues of guilt, prior-knowledge, and morality take the fore as Michael arranges to tape readings for Hanna, aging away in prison. While the story has shifted to the older Michael, the filmmakers have been oblique about what Michael knows after he begins to receive notes from Hanna, which he does not answer.

Certain critics have complained that Hanna’s story (from the novel by Bernhard Schlink) is not worth telling. Others think, as does this reviewer, that all stories are worth telling, even that of an SS murderess. Besides, in its perhaps too-oblique way, the film points to various kinds of guilt, even that of the older Michael. We are, in fact, compelled to make up our minds about these matters. In The Reader, nuance rules–and the complete story, nuances and all, can get under your skin. It’s certainly worth seeing.