Is there a point past forgiveness?

Are some crimes so beyond comprehension that no mitigating circumstance is enough?

Those questions are at the heart of "The Reader," their existence its biggest problem. The acting, particularly by Kate Winslet, is at times inspired. But the relentlessly downbeat nature of the film, along with the prospect of feeling sorry for a woman who worked as a Nazi guard and was at least partially responsible for the deaths of hundreds, is a bit much to ask.

Winslet plays Hanna Schmitz, a streetcar ticket-taker who happens upon a retching boy in an alley during a rainstorm. That boy is Michael Berg, whom we will come to know at various stages of his life. The young Berg is played by David Kross; Ralph Fiennes plays him as an adult.

This chance meeting will lead to a passionate affair between Hanna and Michael, one that includes not just copious amounts of sex but intellectual stimulation as well. Hanna likes to be read to, and requires it of Michael almost as a ticket of admission to her bed.

They grow close, but Hanna is moody, flying off into rages. Michael is being kept from friends his age, and when Hanna is offered a promotion, she suddenly disappears.

We next see Michael in law school, where his professor (Bruno Ganz) takes his students to the trial of women charged with war crimes — and Hanna is among them. She was a guard at Auschwitz, and is being tried for murder in the deaths of hundreds of prisoners.

Michael is of course flooded with memories — director Stephen Daldry plays with time throughout — and struggles with his emotions. Hanna has a secret, one that Michael realizes over the course of the trial. It doesn't absolve her of guilt, but would affect her punishment if she would reveal it.

The adult Michael remains morally confused, distant, still grappling with his feelings about Hanna. Fiennes is, as always, quite good, but this part of the film is sterile, cold. Only a late scene, in which Michael meets with the daughter of a survivor (a quietly ferocious Lena Olin), feels truly alive, and is all the more welcome because of it.

Kross is good in a tricky role. Winslet is outstanding, particularly given that Hanna is such an unsympathetic character. We never quite feel sympathy toward Hanna, and it's a testament to Winslet's skill and confidence that she never really asks us to.