It is a British film, of course: who else but an Englishman would want to imprison Marceau in this way, and create a story in which all the main characters look peeved and stunted?... The artifice of the confection is too much to take.

A movie that ponderously patch-quilts bits of other films and texts, and even then does not have enough material to fill 107 minutes, let alone a screen wide enough for Lawrence of Arabia.

This modest movie is Jane Eyre on a shoestring, but the Brontës meet East Lynne without igniting a spark or pricking a tear. It's an insufferably dull affair.

Though sometimes predictable, Nicholson's film is sustained by the quality of his writing, especially the musings about the magical powers of firelight, by the almost surreal lake house scenes and by the scoring of Christopher Gunning.