Genova

Writer-director Michael Winterbottom and lead actor Colin Firth joined forces on a 2008 romance and family drama. It was never distributed in the USA, although a couple of trade journals reviewed it favourably. Its only marketable points in the States would have been its main supporting actress, Catherine Keener, and its location work in a pretty ancient Italian city, Genova. But potential art-house audiences couldn't be expected to flock to a tale of two young daughters of an English professor (Firth), all seeking a new start in Italy after the death of their mother/wife in a car crash.

The father, who'd had a youthful fling with an American colleague (Keener), starts an affair with a young student. The older daughter has a secret relationship with an Italian youth, the younger girl sees the ghost of the mother she accidentally killed ... yet all's well that must end well in such an exquisite environment.

Laurence Coriat wrote the screenplay, which follows the path taken by a British family in his first (1999) movie, Wonderland, on which he also worked with Winterbottom. An even more frequent collaborator partnered the director on the cinematography, Danish Marcel (9 Songs, 24 Hour Party People) Zyskind. Winterbottom's usual penchant for improvised dialogue is also evident, tediously so in too many "natural" scenes when messy conversations needed pruning.

Winterbottom cobbled together some finely-photographed outdoor settings (narrow lanes, crowded beaches, coastal scenery) and set designs (darkened bars, shadowy bedrooms). But he

hasn't identified this beautiful bustling Italian port-city's eerie beauty in the way that Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now captured Venice as the vital feature in a mystery movie. The mystery element, which should be closer to a horror motif in the lonely younger daughter's visions of her dead mother, is highlighted ineffectively and too late in the movie. The high-pitched nightmares of the young girl needed to build a tension, as did the older daughter's clandestine affair and their father's re-discovery of loving feelings.

British viewers may enjoy an unexpected laugh early in the movie, when the family flies to Europe on Ryanair and receives immaculate consideration and speedy service from a stewardess. Such product placement may be valuable PR but in Europe it's far-from-subliminal comedy too.