FIRELIGHT (Directed by William Nicholson. Starring Sophie Marceau, Stephen Dillane, Kevin Anderson.)

THE INORDINATELY elegant (and strikingly untalented) Sophie Marceau gets the corset out again for this utterly snoozesome 19th-century period romp. In fact, ‘period romp’ is far too intriguing-sounding a term to apply to Firelight: it’s more of a period yawn, with Marceau reprising her usual routine to characteristically soulless effect.

She plays a Swiss governess who’s paid by a rich aristocrat (Stephen Dillane) to get pregnant, then parted from the baby as soon as it arrives. Seven years down the line, she embarks on an expedition to London to see the child. And, eh, that’s basically it.

Even in summary form, it sounds like shockingly dull stuff, but you’d really have to see it to get any inkling at all of just how nondescript the whole experience is. Firelight is directed reasonably competently, and there are no especially glaring artistic flaws – unless you count automated acting, plodding pacing and suffocating dullness as artistic flaws, which I suppose you’re more than entitled to do.

Try as I might, I cannot envisage myself buying the video when it comes out and watching it five times a week. In the immortal words of Austin Powers, “It ain’t my bag, baby”. (CF)