Miranda

Outfitted in Swingers castoffs and retro pompadour, Frank (Simm) mans the front desk at a library slated for demolition. Dynamite in a trenchcoat, Miranda (Ricci) loiters about the joint, much to Frank's fascination. Her mouth receives special scrutiny when she attacks sushi, 'gorging on uncooked flesh like a vampire', as Frank marvels. The black widow also pulls on cigarettes as if sucking the life juice from some poor sap's jugular. Frank sticks his neck out, but after a couple of weeks of nonstop and apparently fully clothed bonking, the ostentatiously bored Miranda moves on to more pressing business: an impenetrable real-estate scheme masterminded by her withered mentor Christian (Hurt) - selling non-existent buildings - which entangles her reptilian sometime lover, the evocatively named Nailor (MacLachlan). This quasi-noirish, woefully confused romance springs from a stage monologue by Rob Young (notable previous theatre credit: The Man with the Absurdly Large Penis); and the monochrome personalities betray these origins. Hazy fantasy Miranda and saintly goon Frank (sample outburst: 'I come from a stupid little town where my mates live and it's called home') improvise an oddly hostile courtship dance, while the plot stumbles about in search of its next non sequitur: intimations of sado-masochism, an inevitable kidnapping. The film even fashions a blasphemous Vertigo-style makeover for its femme fatale, who is blunt-cut from the Hollywood rom-com stable of highly strung career gals in need of a 'you complete me' speech. Frank never gets to deliver it, for which we can only be grateful. JWin.