When mother-of-two Helen (Dapkunaite) fails to observe the Green Cross Code she find herself lying in the road preparing to meet her maker.

However, she isn�t quite ready to make his acquaintance and rises from the dead or, at least, from the south London street where she was knocked down.

Her resurrection is made all the more poignant because the last telephone chat she had with hubby Peter Mullan � a Bosnian aid worker � wasn�t a happy one.

He�s now hitching lifts in mechanically suspect Mercedes and on rattling ox-carts to get back for her birthday�unaware she�s no longer with us.

Meanwhile, she sweeps back into the family home to watch her shattered son (James E Martin) and daughter (Findlay) come to terms with their loss.

Director Emily Young switches between London and Bosnia, lending equal weight to Helen�s quandary and the desperate journey home of her husband through a landscape of razed villages.

So we get some confused comment on the Balkan crisis as well as the opportunity to see what a gauche relief worker Mullan is (in one dim-wit moment he allows a corrupt roadblock squaddie to pocket his wallet).

Back in London things aren�t much better with the kids wandering about trance-like while she drifts around the house in spiritual limbo (although it feels like she�s popped home to get her keys).

This doesn�t really hang together with a curiously flat and emotionally unengaging performance from Dapkunaite (who replaced the late Katrin Cartlidge).

Any effort to coax natural displays from the young cast yields awkward and clumsy responses while the stilted narrative doesn�t do anyone any favours.

Still, it could have been worse. They could have stood by the original title: Helen of Peckham.

Tim Evans