This is emotionally affecting at times, but writer-director Paul Weitz... adopts a prosaic approach that abandons the source novel's lyrical persuasions.

Stinky is the only word to describe this earnest thriller in which a famous American opera singer learns life lessons (and gets jiggy) in a hostage crisis.

Bel Canto pushes a hard message about cultural misconceptions and boasts a promising and diverse cast, but only really makes an impact in the first and final minutes.

The story should have political and socioeconomic resonances but it plays more like a soap opera, flitting from scene to scene with an ever-increasing sense of melodrama.