A good company is not enough

actress of immense talent and rare beauty, scored a surprise success a

couple of years ago with Anthony Minghella's Truly Madly Deeply. But she

is not Hollywood's idea of a beautiful woman and leading roles which

suited her, which she would even consider, would in the nature of things

have been thin on the ground. She was a huge success in Death and the

Maiden, but the film role went to Sigourney Weaver, for instance.

Stevenson's follow-up film role was a telling, but small, cameo in

Kafka's The Trial, one of those rent-paying parts, although the company

was good -- it starred Anthony Hopkins. But why, for her second film

leading role she should pick The Secret Rapture (15) is a matter for

puzzled speculation.

It is based on a play by David Hare, which enjoyed some success at the

National Theatre in 1989, and is directed by Howard Davies, the play's

director, making his film debut. Again the company is good. The cast

includes Penelope Wilton, Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, Alan Howard, and

British television's answer to Mel Gibson, Neil Pearson.

Hare is a favourite writer of the chattering classes, and the chances

are that the film, made for Channel Four, will seem really highbrow

stuff when screened late in the evening -- it has some pretty explicit

stripped-to-the-buff love scenes between Mr Pearson and Ms Stevenson.

But it remains pretty impenetrable stodge, and it does look as if

somewhere between stage and screen something has got lost -- the reasons

why these middle-class folk behave like they do for a start.

One suspects that Stevenson has allowed her theatrical tastes to

influence her judgment, and that while the role might work a dream for

her in the theatre she is unaware of just how silly such agonised

middle-class Angst can seem on the screen. The pity is Minghella was not

around to write her another vehicle.

She plays a youngish graphic designer who is bullied by her elder

sister, a Government minister (Wilton), condescended to by her

businessman brother-in-law (Howard), and worshipped by her

graphic-designer boyfriend (Pearson). When their father dies she is

lumbered with looking after his young, alcoholic, former good-time-girl

widow (Whalley-Kilmer), and all hell breaks loose as the widow, a

succubus, takes over the firm and destroys Stevenson's relationship with

Pearson.

There is, however, no good reason given as to why they should take on

Ms Whalley-Kilmer's character. In a real family the reaction to Daddy's

death would be to thank God they had got shot of that cow of a second

wife and leave her to drown her sorrows in drink. Nor is there any

reason why, even although Stevenson and Pearson are talented designers,

the sage brother-in-law should take over their firm, allow it to expand,

and let Ms Whalley-Kilmer ruin it. And finally, why has Pearson to be

such a wimp?

To lose Ms Stevenson, while sad, is surely not something to drive a

man to madness. The woman she plays is one of those indecisive,

stubborn-as-hell creatures more likely to provoke intense irritation and

ulcers in their nearest and dearest than an urge to reach for a

revolver.

The acting is generally fine, although Ms Whalley-Kilmer, landed with

a ludicrous role and some ghastly clothes, has trouble making sense of

what she is required to do. Ms Stevenson bares her body bravely and, as

befits one of the best weepers in the business -- she did an awful lot

of it in Truly Madly Deeply -- cries a lot.

It is Mr Pearson, the hunk of Drop the Dead Donkey and Between the

Lines, who emerges best from the whole affair. He is handsome, can act

and with a little bit of luck could be the first British leading he-man

to emerge since Michael Caine.

The fact is Hare writes lousy plays and makes dreadful films, but, as

a paid-up member of the chattering classes, gets taken seriously when he

ought to be told to go away and have a life. As for Mr Davies, who

clearly opted for a work he knew well for his film debut, maybe a little

more courage would have been a better idea. Playing safe does not always

win the day.

In Intersection (15), directed by Mark Rydell, Richard Gere is a

successful forty-something architect whom we meet driving too fast along

a mountain road in eastern Canada. He is a happy man. Then, overtaking a

stalled van on a bend, he comes face to face with a great big lorry and

his car goes into a skid.

After that it is flashback time as we learn that he is unhappily

married to ice-maiden Sharon Stone, they have a cute 13-year-old

ballet-dancing daughter, Jenny Morrison, and he is having an affair with

red-headed journalist, Lolita Davidovitch. Which woman should he choose?

The dilemma is hardly worth considering since Ms Davidovitch is warm and

lusty, while Ms Stone is frigid and ambitious.

The rest of the film is spent telling how he met the women in his life

and how he decided which charmer to opt for. Mr Gere, in spite of those

too narrow little eyes, is a personable chap blessed with some boyish

charm and a lot of nice grey hair which he tosses around Heseltine-style

at times of stress. The scenery is superb, and Ms Davidovitch is without

qualification delectable, but it remains an exceedingly turgid tale --

and there is that motor accident happening which does not bode well for

Mr Gere's future.

No Escape (15), directed by Martin Campbell, is set in a privatised

penal colony in the year 2022 presided over by a ruthless warden,

Michael Learner. When marine captain and murderer, Ray Liotta, he of the

ice-cold blue eyes, is sent there, he promptly falls foul of the system

and is dispatched to the warden's own private game reserve, an island

called Absolom, where the really hard cases fight it out to the death,

primitive-tribe fashion.

The goodies are ruled over by the Father, Lance Henriksen being

saintly, the baddies by Stuart Wilson, who gets all the best lip-curling

moments and has taken over where Alan Rickman left off as Hollywood's

favourite English heavy.

The intriguing thing is that in the film, otherwise a pure slap, bang,

wallop Mad Max rip off, the love interest is provided not by the usual

blonde bimbo, pace Ms Stone, but by Kevin Dillon as a pretty boy

prisoner. He falls heavily for Liotta, who is not averse to the odd

manly hug. Very queer indeed.