Franklyn (15)

Allow that director Gerald McMorrow's feature debut shows ambition in fusing psychodrama, fantasy and metropolitan romance.

Sadly, coherence and comprehensibility have been left for dead. The story occupies parallel worlds. In London a suicidal young woman (Eva Green) rages against her mother, a forlorn young man (Sam Riley) recovers from a broken love affair, and a baffled father (Bernard Hill) searches for his missing son; in the mythic precincts of Meanwhile City, a white-masked avenger (Ryan Phillippe) prepares to kill a man and offers in voiceover some philosophical teasers about faith and fate. It's quite stylishly shot, but the effort of making sense of it all really wears you down, and the actors have to recite dialogue that only highlights its silliness and pomposity. "A modern fairytale for cynical times", says McMorrow. This will not make you any less cynical, I'm afraid.