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Kate Winslet has always been very convincing an actress, able to disappear into her characters with seeming ease. Equally convincing in American or English roles - her two movieyears nominations from me have been for one of each - she has a habit of taking roles of women with a fair amount of internalised struggle, mostly in the name of love. Whether it's the tormented unrequited love of Marianne Dashwood, or the unfulfilled sexual desire of Sarah Pierce, Winslet has always thrown herself into these parts with abandon, clearly finding love, sex and marriage irresistible subject matters to explore.

The Reader is ostensibly about something else altogether - an exploration of redemption, guilt and morality, but at its heart is a love story between Winslet's Hanna Schmitz and David Kross/Ralph Fiennes' Michael Berg. The story begins when Kross' teenage Berg happens to meet Hanna by pure chance. He is 15, she much older, but quickly the two embark on a brief but passionate affair, one that will linger on in both of them for the rest of their lives. After an inseperable summer, the two grow apart and it is only a few years later that Kross sees her again. He has enrolled as law student, and during a university trip to view a high profile court case he discovers the woman on trial for war crimes is no-one other than the woman with whom he fell madly in love.

It is at this point that The Reader switches gears altogether leaving behind the story of May to December romance, first love and the yearnings of an older woman, instead becoming a tale of morality. Schmitz is on trial since she worked as a guard for the Nazis in concentration camps during the war. What should happen to her and the other women on trial? How culpable were they, having only followed orders rather than been responsible for setting Nazi agenda? How guilty are German citizens for letting it happen? They voted the Nazis in power, there were few protests over any of their actions. Are they as guilty as Hanna Schmitz? Daldry and co attempt to answer some of these questions, they attempt to get inside the head of guards like Schmitz who blindly followed these heinous orders. When questioned why she let 300 prisoners burn to death when their shelter caught fire, he response is curiously dispassionate - "they would have escaped, there would have been chaos."

The idea of the film, and book it is based on, is not to demonise Schmitz - indeed quite the opposite. Daldry and David Hare, who adapted Bernhard Schlink's novel, portray Schmitz as a complex, conflicted character. She is honest but dispassionate. She is too proud to admit she can't read or write, but willing to admit she devised a system for selecting which prisoners should be executed. And then we have a, perhaps belated, small sense of dramatic tension when Kross must decide whether to testify something that would be favourable to Schmitz. Should he fulfill his moral obligation of informing a court of law of pertinent information to the case, even if that evidence helps a self-confessed Nazi war criminal? There is a student in Kross' class who takes the moral high ground announcing that everyone who professed ignorance was guilty. Moral questions such as these fly back and forth across the screen throughout the second half of The Reader, but the trouble is that such moral wrangling is not particularly interesting to watch on film. Or maybe, perhaps more accurately, such moral wrangling is not particularly interesting to watch in this film.

Two of best German actors around lend support: Bruno Ganz, whose Hitler portrayal in Downfall is essential viewing, appears as Kross' university lecturer. Burghart Klaußner who appears only briefly in Goodbye Lenin! but made such an impression on me that I have looked out for his work ever since, takes a small role as the judge in charge of court proceedings. They elevate the film somewhat when on screen but really any saving grace solely resides with Winslet who is accomplished in what is a difficult role. She copes admirably early on, including the challenge of filming nude scenes in which she is scene making love to a 15 year old (played by 18 year old David Kross). Whilst appearing naked on screen is nothing new to Winslet (in fact it is probably quicker to make a list of films in which she has not appeared naked) filming love scenes with someone so young is, and they convince very well indeed. Later scenes, in which she plays the significantly older Schmitz, now aged 70 or 80, are slightly less persuasive.

Daldry's film is receiving lots of awards notice but, rather like his previous awards-bait effort The Hours, I'm not certain it deserves very much. Winslet's nomination amongst supporting actresses may be worthy but an Oscar win would be too much of a 'make up' award for previous defeats and Winslet deserves so much better.