Dir. Craig Rosenberg, 2005, Germany/UK, 110 mins
Cast:
Demi Moore, Hans Matheson, James Cosmo, Kate Isitt
Review by Carol Allen
At the beginning of the movie, best-selling novelist Rachel (Moore) is
told by her disgruntled husband Brian (Henry Ian Cusick) that his
attempt at literature has been rejected by a publisher because it's "not
thrilling enough for a thriller". Which is valid criticism of the
movie itself. Even worse, though, this attempt at Hitchcockian drama
suffers from outrageously clichéd plotting and some truly ludicrous dialogue.
The story kicks off when Rachel and Brian's small son wanders out of the
garden of their luxurious Camden Lock mansion and onto the towpath.
The fact that he is about to fall into the canal and drown is signalled
so loudly that writer/director Rosenberg might just as well have put up
a notice. Surprise, surprise, Rachel with the help of her best girl
friend (Isitt), who looks so dodgy she's got to be up to no good, goes
off to a remote part of Scotland to recover from her grief and try to
finish her latest opus. Her marriage, after all, we've been heavily
signalled, is in a distinctly rocky state. The cottage she rents
overlooks a lighthouse and, when she rows out there, she meets the
handsome widowed lighthouse keeper Angus (Matheson) and romance is born.
According to the locals, however, who have an irritating habit of
lapsing into mock conspiratorial conversations in Gaelic in an attempt
to unsettle Rachel and us, Angus died some years earlier -
something any experienced filmgoer will have guessed already. What is
going on? And do we care?
The cast, which also includes Cosmo as the only copper for miles around,
do their best with what is frankly a terrible script. Rachel, when
composing her novel, uses little cards with plot lines and character
notes to keep track of her story. I suspect Rosenberg did the same to
little effect when writing the screenplay. It plays as though he has
read all the screenwriting manuals and followed them slavishly without adding any original plotting, characterisation or perception of his own. And
virtually every event is so heavily signposted in advance that there is
no dramatic tension. I was also worried as to why Rachel, in this day
and age, uses a portable typewriter instead of a laptop. But it's a
small point in a film where everything is so ridiculous, anyway. All
the film has going for it is that it will give you a jolly good laugh at
its own expense and the scenery looks pretty.
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