This might be called 'The tale of the psychiatrist, his wife, her lover and the other psychiatrist'; there aren't many laughs apart from the occasional witticism. Hugh Bonneville plays a smug and unimaginative shrink newly appointed to a secure hospital for the criminally insane which he hopes to take over one day. Another psychiatrist (Ian McKellen, all bustle and unctuous concern) notes that Natasha Richardson's bored wife has started an affair with a rough but artistic inmate, and decides to have them both for himself, while using the opportunity to destablise the opposition. He encourages the affair but obstructs the prisoner's rehabilitation, until, driven wild, the prisoner escapes and the wife then follows him to London. In the ensuing embroglio, the marriage of shrink No 1 is all but destroyed, and the scandal gets shrink no 2 accelerated into the top job, where he promptly dismisses shrink no 1. There follow shenanigans in north Wales, where shrink no.1 is now working with wife and son unhappily in tow. When the madman locates them, events descend into black tragedy and a certain suspension of disbelief is required. The wife then becomes a patient at her former residence and shrink no.2 makes his play, perhaps a little too precipitately; the outcome is unhappy for everyone.
Query: after the lovers' first tryst on the very messy potting shed floor, her white dress remains like the driven snow as she leaves. Symbolic, or just careless direction?
The book is better, but the film is worth watching. ( )