A Judgement in Stone

Lord! The things that happen when you're dyslexic! Eunice (Tushingham) is thus afflicted, and according to a prologue, her inability to read causes all sorts of traumas at school. Worse, it makes her grow up into a mousy, embittered spinster, bullied by her unshaven father and given to wearing silly wigs. Dad, in fact, gets on her nerves so much (what with his ludicrous attempts at a cockney accent) that she kills him and then, still concealing her disability, contrives to find a job in middle America as housekeeper with a kind and wealthy family. But what happens when she has to provide a shopping list? Yep, you guessed it: Eunice goes off her rocker, and pretty soon all hell is let loose. It's hard to tell whether this inept adaptation of Ruth Rendell's novel is meant as a straightforward psychological thriller or as a peculiarly camp black comedy. The awful acting - not merely Tushingham, all wide-eyed bathos and twitchy hysteria, but the entire cast - and the leaden direction suggest the former.