Have Kate Winslet’s Oscar hopes gone down the plughole?

Many felt that Kate Winslet was certain to get an Oscar nomination for her role in Stephen Daldry's latest film, The Reader, a drama set in post-war Germany that also features Ralph Fiennes. But this is now thought to be in jeopardy following an attack on the movie by the influential New York film critic, Charlie Finch, who has accused Daldry of trivialising the holocaust with the English actress’s many nude scenes in the film.

Winslet, 33, plays a former concentration camp guard who has a torrid affair with a teenage boy (played by David Kross, pictured in bath with Winslet in the film) and in the process of which overcomes her illiteracy (thus, the title). The film is not released until Wednesday, but Finch was in the audience last week at a private screening arranged by Daldry.

Finch, who contributes to a number of New York magazines and newspapers, wrote for Artnet: "What is especially repellent about The Reader is the use of Kate Winslet's nubile body to create sympathy for a repellent character, whose triumph over illiteracy somehow mitigates unspeakable crimes that are never actually depicted on screen. Daldry avoided showing the horror of her crimes: instead we have Holocaust chic which is all about sex, not mass murder."

Winslet, who got the part after Daldry's first choice, Nicole Kidman, dropped out after becoming pregnant, has said of the sex scenes: "There is a lot of nudity in the beginning. But it's 100 per cent justified by the story."