Okay, I might have this all wrong, but isn’t there a huge plot hole in The Reader? If not, can someone please explain to me why the script goes to so much trouble to stress that the Kate Winslet character is found especially guilty of her crime because she confesses to having written a certain document (it is implied that the document must be written in her own handwriting), and then suggests that she can’t write at all, but keeps on treating her as if she’s more guilty than the others?
By the way, except for this huge glitch (if it is such), I enjoyed the film a lot. Winslet’s performance is indeed Oscar-worthy. I don’t think that the political criticism leveled at the film (i.e., that it portrays a concentration camp guard too sympathetically) is true. After all, the film portrays her not only as a docile concentration camp guard, but also as a pedophile who has left deep psychological scars on her victim… In fact, if the script is suggesting that she voluntarily accepts responsibility for a document she did not write, it implies that she herself recognizes her own guilt more honestly than the others.
UPDATE 2/23/09- Apparently the Oscar voters agreed. Winslet won.