A collector of 'gifts from the sea', Amy Foster's eponymous raven-haired lass (Rachel Weisz - Stealing Beauty) is considered an oddball by fellow villagers. And when a storm washes up Ukrainian refugee Yanko Gooral (Vincent Perez - La Reine Margot) on the beach, the two outcasts start an inevitable affair. Any director attempting to capture turn-of-the century pastoral angst after Roman Polanski's exceptional Tess has his or her work cut out. And sadly, Kidron's (BBC TV's Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit) Cornish love story manages to miss the mark by an alarmingly wide margin.
Gaily stuffing her movie with clichés, she delivers a cringeworthy Mills & Boonsesque rendition of Joseph Conrad's tragic tale, all of which is made more inane by Perez and Weisz's superficial understanding of their characters. Here's a depressing thought: Amy Foster was awarded a hefty £3 million, the largest sum of Lottery money dished out to a film project so far. Which means you may have paid for it...
