Pretensions finally got round to watching this year’s Academy Award winner Kate Winslet in “The Reader" a historical romance cum drama. She really enjoyed it and could see why Kate walked away with the statuette this year.

Directed by Stephen Daldry, The Reader is set in post-World War II Germany where we are first introduced to the protagonist, Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes), who we discover has an upcoming meeting with his daughter. A passing train leads to a flashback where Michael thinks back to his teenage years in 1958. At that time, he remembers coming down with scarlet fever and how a kind and attractive woman (Kate Winslet) comforts him and helps him home. Upon recovering, 15 year-old Michael (played quite convincingly by David Kross) becomes obsessed with the woman and tracks down her home, where he embarks on a tempestuous Mrs Robinson-nesque affair with a much older woman, Hanna Schmitz. Hanna enjoys being read to by Michael and often asks for excerpts from novels, such as Chekov’s The Lady with the Dog,  to be read to her before sex. Michael remains in love with Hanna throughout the summer, ignoring all girls his own age, but one day, after a quarrel, he comes to Hanna’s flat to find her gone.

The scene then shifts to a courtroom in 1966, where Michael, now in his ‘20s, is attending Heidelberg Law School. As part of a special class under Professor Rohl (Bruno Ganz), he attends a trial of 6 ex-SS officers who stand accused of the murder of 300 Jews by locking them in a burning church. He is stunned to see that Hanna is one of the defendants. The trial hinges on a handwritten report that was made by the women; Hanna claims that all 6 of them contributed to it, but the others accuse her of being the leader. In order to save herself from life imprisonment, Hanna must reveal a secret she has kept all her life; a secret that only Michael can guess. The rest of the movie revolves around the agony of decision and what came from those decisions.

Without giving away too much, Pretensions found the plot tender and painful. Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes both give excellent portrayals of people who must live with shameful secrets, especially the one of their illicit love. So much is said, but even more lies in the weighted glances exchanged by the two, the aversion of the eyes, a reaching out that finds no reciprocation.

Kate Winslet plays Hanna as she ages from confident 36-year old to a grey, beaten 66. She is always believable and one admires her easy belief that the truth is self-evident and must be told, while she continues to hide her many secrets. P could not always like Hanna, because of her matter-of-fact admittance of murder, but could admire her as a strong woman who would not hide behind others.

This is definitely a weepy on the scale of The English Patient, but thoroughly recommended to those who enjoy masterly character sketches with a historical gloss.