Dusty literary experts are not the type you imagine waist-deep in damp soil, engaging in a bit of grave-robbing.

Nor are they normally to be seen hurtling around in Mercedes saloons and indulging in all sorts of dodgy shenanigans to discover the secret life of a long-dead poet.

British scholar Fergus Wolfe (Toby Stephens) and American dealer Cropper (Trevor Eve) are the unscrupulous pair who see dollar signs on the dusty shelves.

They have discovered that two bookish investigators, Roland Mitchell (Eckhart) and Maud Bailey (Paltrow), have unearthed a love affair involving the Poet Laureate to Queen Victoria.

It appears that the married Randolph Henry Ash (Northam) fell for the charms of fellow poet Christabel LaMotte (Ehle) - who was already in a lesbian relationship.

Private dicks Roland, a brash American (I'm a brush and flush kinduva guy), and icy English Maude travel to Yorkshire and France as more clues are unearthed about the couple.

At the same time, we rewind more than a century to see Ash and LaMotte's brief but intense trip to Whitby, where they were alone for the first and only time.

Director LaBute admits that, rather than compress the whole book into a film, he had to reach out for the spirit of the piece.

Northam plays it straight as Ash but it is Ehle's character - an author, lesbian and proto-feminist - who intrigues.

Paltrow again shows she is more than comfortable as an English rose, and her blossoming affair with the maverick Roland is affectionately played out.

If there is one criticism, it's the Keystone cops-style graveyard denouement, which is at odds with the pace of the rest of the narrative.

A small but satisfactory film - poetry in motion picture, if you like.

Tim Evans