No matter what you think this adaptation of A.S. Byatt's novella Morpho Eugenia sounds like, it's better and certainly kinkier than your best parlor-game guess.

Angels and Insects is like the dark underside of a Merchant-Ivory film; in one scene, we visit a sunny, pastoral clearing in the woods, and lift up a rock to see the plump, slimy little slugs and larvae beneath, dining on each other.

Though the sex is steamy and Kensit's dark secret a shocker, it all turns out to be exquisitely boring.

Haas, with the help of a Nymanesque score and vivid if static photography, efficiently transfers a complex text to the screen without ever quite animating it.