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Looking for love under ver-ry different conditions elsewhere in the British Isles during the same period is this second film treatment of English novelist Graham Greene's 1951 tale of miraculous infidelity.
Tapping some of the stable of players frequently seen in his movies, director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, Interview with the Vampire) utilizes the now de rigeur device of replaying narrative through different eyes to tell the story of a devoutly atheistic writer (Ralph Fiennes) who carries on a passionate romance with the lonely wife (Julianne Moore) of a prominent government minister (Stephen Rea). War, religion, honor, and a private detective collide in Greene's typically mystical fashion, clothed in wonderfully restrained period costume and sets. Describing what happens is difficult, though; the actual plot would sound ludicrous if simpy stated outright, and was in fact off-putting almost to the point of distraction at times. But a final, fantastic twist follows a more predictable turn (which, had it been written by Poe, might have been titled "The Telltale Cough") to wraps things up in curiously satisfying fashion.
What comes to mind is a line from Pink Floyd: "Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way." B
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