HILARY AND JACKIE (48)

Directed by: Anand Tucker

Starring: Emily Watson, Rachel Griffiths, James Frain

Theo Sez: Jackie is Jacqueline du Pré, world-famous cellist ; Hilary is her non-famous sister, a wife and mother who stayed home loyally cutting out scrapbooks of Jackie's news clippings - though she was also an accomplished flautist and, suggests the film (based, ahem, on Hilary's memoirs), may well have been the more naturally gifted of the two (but unable, even in childhood, to handle pressure, whereas Jackie thrived in the limelight). Diligently made but unsatisfying, due almost certainly to a structural misjudgement : it (rather smartly) repeats the middle act from different perspectives, giving us first Hilary's version of events then Jackie's - but they don't have the same impact, boiling down to a catalogue of cruelty and selfishness (Jackie's mean to her sister, squelches her joy at a marriage proposal, hurtfully reminds her that "you're not special", demands that she "share" her husband with her) followed by a rather high-flown extenuation blaming the pressures of celebrity and the heightened sensitivities of the 'artistic temperament' : it just looks like making excuses, especially since we go from that straight to Jackie's illness, pointing up the rather unsavoury 'victim' angle (the reverse structure - showing first the intolerable pressures then their unfortunate consequences - might, you suspect, have worked better). Otherwise a mixed bag, not above the occasional cliché - a childhood rhyme poignantly remembered, suburban mores played for laughs, overwrought stylistic flourishes at 'dramatic' moments - but ambitious and notably well-acted, at least if you can wade through the cello music plastered over everything. It aims for a variation on SHINE, the notion of music as a glorious flame, scorching those who embrace it ("It will give you the world," Jackie's told of the cello, "but you must give it yourself") ; it ends up a rather opportunistic bit of celebrity gossip, trying to nail the nature of genius but, at its worst, managing only to reduce a brilliant musician to a sad species of emotional vampire.