"The Reader" is a difficult film to categorize. It is not just a Holocaust film, it is not just a love story, it is not just a story about redemption and it is not just a story about dark secrets — it is all of these things, and more.

The film is anchored in West Germany circa 1958. Michael Berg, played by David Kross, is a 15-year-old student who meets middle-aged trolley attendant Hannah Schmitz (Kate Winslet) by chance and strikes up an affair. Half of his time is spent making love to Hannah while the other half is spent reading classic novels to her, hence the title of them. After a few months, Hannah takes off, leaving Michael with a broken heart.

Fast-forward to 1966, Michael is a law student attending Nazi war-crime trials with his class only to find his long lost love Hannah is one of the four women on trial. The audience comes to find out that Hannah was a prison guard in the work camps and was responsible for singling out women to send to the death camps. Micheal's life is turned upside down when he realizes that the woman he was in love with might be a cold-blooded killer. During the course of the trial Michael discovers that he has information that could help Hannah, but he finds himself torn between protecting his secret and helping the woman he loves.

While Kate Winslet's performance is being heralded as the best of the year and the strongest aspect of this film, the true genius lays elsewhere — the writing. David Hare's screenplay adapted from Bernhard Schlink's book is spectacular. The intricacies of the story and the depth of the characters leave nothing to be desired.

This is not to say that Winslet's performance is not exceptional, it is. Hare has woven a tale of a love affair between a youthful boy and a middle-aged woman and found a way to make it romantic and sexy while minimizing the squirm-factor of the taboo topic. Winslet and her young male counterpart execute it perfectly.

There are some difficult aspects of this film — for one, it is hard to connect with a love story when one party is a Nazi war criminal. Also, the story does quite a bit of jumping around between time periods and places. This could have been solved by incorporating fewer storylines. For instance, the adult Michael's relationship with his daughter is addressed, but does little for the story as a whole.

Director Stephen Daldry ("Billy Elliot," "The Hours") has not made many films, but he shows us his skill at bringing out great performances from his actors. In the end, this film is successful in tugging at your heartstrings, and is a marvel of acting dexterity.