THE ENGLISH PATIENT (64)

Directed by: Anthony Minghella

Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas, Juliette Binoche

The Pitch: A dying Hungarian pilot, being looked after by a nurse in the last days of WWII, remembers his affair with a beautiful Englishwoman in North Africa before the war.

Theo Sez: The frequent preoccupation with language - pointing out the best way to read Kipling, the precise name for the little hollow at the base of your neck, the fact that "Yes" is a reassuring response and "Absolutely" is not - typifies the rather academic quality at the heart of this movie. Like the eponymous hero it broods magnificently, giving nothing away, dropping dark hints of murder and betrayal; yet, like him, it's finally revealed as quite harmless and thoroughly soft-centred. Admittedly there is something seductive to it, whether in the gorgeous lushness of its voluptuous desertscapes or in its feel for the romantic moment - a look across the desert, a tryst by golden lamplight - or in its silky rhythm of tracks and dissolves, or in the way it gradually teases out the truth. An alternative title might be Secrets and Lies, the hero's particular lie being that he doesn't believe in ownership when it comes to relationships, the heroine's that she's not deeply in love with him. Yet, in the end, it remains an earthbound, underwhelming sort of movie - good taste hangs over it like a softly-spoken curse. It's the kind of film where Juliette Binoche can take a wholly gratuitous outdoor shower without even a hint of gratuitous nudity. Comparisons with the grand passions of David Lean movies seem particularly unwarranted: as the opening titles suggest, the film is far more interested in small, precise brushstrokes. The epic qualities - so different to this director's previous movies - seem to be viewed almost as a necessary evil.