Here's an oddity: an Anglo-French co-production from an Egyptian film-maker with a multinational cast including a smattering of Brits and one out-of-place American. Movies come in all shapes and sizes these days, but Room To Rent takes the biscuit.
Would that all these diverse influences had converged to make something original. But this uneven mixture of satire and romance - based on Hagar's own experiences as a foreigner in London - is a deeply conventional comedy which ends up reinforcing the stereotypes it seeks to subvert.
According to Hagar, the city is awash with gay photographers (Graves), Marilyn Monroe impersonators (Lewis) and blind spinsters (Massey) waiting for their long-lost lovers to be reincarnated. All either help or hinder budding scriptwriter Ali (Taghmaoui) in his quest for a passport, though why he'd want to stay in a country populated by such weirdos is anyone's guess.
