If you are going to drag your audience through a glutinous quagmire of misery then you might at least have a decent story to tell.

In Carl Bessai's gloomy meditation on identity - with Johnny and Lola the third in a series - so little happens that there's barely a plot at all.

McKellen plays Emile, a scientist specialising in the sexy subject of resistant strains of wheat, who has been summoned to Canada to be conferred with an honorary degree.

He's facing the journey with some trepidation - after years living in London he's returning to his homeland and, more emotionally draining, the niece he's never really known.

The profoundly unhappy Nadia (Kara Unger) lives with her sullen 10-year-old daughter Maria (Theo Crane) after the disintegration of her marriage.

Gradually we learn that Emile's relationship with his brothers hasn't been a bed of roses and his tragic background has had a direct bearing on Nadia.

McKellen tries his level best to convey a man struggling with his family demons but comes across more like old boy JP Hartley getting dewy-eyed in the Yellow Pages ads.

Bessai uses a variety of film stocks to convey mood and time but when the subject matter is a variety of people standing around looking miserable during confusing flashbacks it counts for nought.

The somnolent piano score - more suited to a Mogadon advert - doesn't help matters while all the performances, although competent, can't cast any light on the relentlessly downbeat narrative.

Only recommended if you're so depressed it might be comforting to find someone feeling grimmer than you do.

Tim Evans