Swedish director Bille August has made some esteemed films, from Pelle The Conqueror to The House Of The Spirits , but this Euro-pudding isn’t one of them. August re-teams with Spirits star Jeremy Irons, here a Swiss-lit professor who saves a woman from jumping to her death. It’s the beginning of a plodding tale that sees Irons head to Portugal to uncover details about a past love triangle (Jack Huston, August Diehl and Mélanie Laurent).
Based on the novel by Pascal Mercier, the back-and-forth narrative saps the story of tension, while Irons bumbles around like a dippy Dumbledore.
