Sometimes good actors see a story that's a little different and sniff a masterpiece in the making. All too often, alas, they're wrong, and so it proves in this rather fey story about a slightly-retarded 30-year-old woman who lives with a aunt six years older, whose husband has died. Debra Winger is just marvellous as the girl who can't lie but, against the naivety of the dialogue and the sluggishness of the direction she's fighting a lost cause. Gabriel Byrne's a bore, as the boozy Irish handyman who becomes sexually involved with both women, but Barbara Hershey just about keeps the giggles at bay in a thankless role as the glamorous aunt. Connoisseurs of bad dialogue will have a field day here and, to be fair to him, Byrne gets the worst of it. 'Sometimes we have to tell lies to get at the truth' or 'You're a wonder, like a primitive thing that's never been spoiled. You might as well live in a glass cocoon' would defeat a string of Oscar-winners. Not even the wonderful Winger can save this one.

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