Love and hate, sin and redemption are fatefully linked in this bittersweet romantic drama, based on Graham Greene's tale of an adulterous affair in wartime London. This isn't the first time Greene's powerful novel has been put on screen, but the 1955 version starring Deborah Kerr and Van Johnson failed to do the story justice. This time around, however, Crying Game director Neil Jordan and his stars, Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore, get right to the heart of the matter. The film opens with writer Maurice Bendrix (Fiennes) seeking to understand why his married lover Sarah (Moore) abruptly broke off their affair two years earlier at the height of the Blitz. Goaded by jealousy, he hires a private investigator (Ian Hart) to pry into Sarah's life, only to discover that his rival is not another man but God. Fiennes, so good at playing tormented lovers in The English Patient and Onegin, turns in another accomplished portrayal as the cynical, self-loathing Bendrix, but Moore, who has the far harder task of conveying goodness, is even better as the enigmatic Sarah. Stephen Rea as the gloomy, cuckolded husband and Hart as the faintly ridiculous private eye give sterling support. The film's evocation of drab, claustrophobic Forties London is thoroughly convincing, although when the narrative takes a mystical turn, some viewers may lose faith. But the acting never lacks conviction, and Fiennes and Moore's tragic passion compels belief.