Endless in both senses, David Hare's trying film gives us dialogue that exists only on the printed page for people who surely never were. This is highlighted in the ludicrous scene in which, in an idyllic country cottage setting, a genteel English lady and her teenage son communicate with each other almost entirely in four-letter words. Who are these people and would we be interested even if we believed in them? The central character is an American nurse working in Britain who finds herself swept off her feet by the persistence of a West German 'businessman' who, it turns out, believes only in the ideal of romantic love, and disappears over the horizon as soon as a woman indicates she'd like to settle down. There's a message in there somewhere about taking responsibility for your feelings - but it gets lost in the welter of Hare's strange, unbelievable script that only exists two paces away from reality. Blair Brown tries hard as the nurse, Bruno Ganz looks puzzled as the eternal lover. Bridget Fonda is hardly in it as the heroine's sloppy sister, but in case the chances are that you'll lose patience with these shadow people long before the end.


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