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Only six years separate Charlotte Rampling and Geoffrey Rush, but that doesn’t deter them from playing a dying matriarch and her inheritance-chasing son in this highbrow literary adaptation from veteran Australian director Fred Schepisi (Steve Martin’s Roxanne ).

Returning to Sydney with neurotic sister Judy Davis in tow, Rush’s actor-knight finds his thespy airs cut no ice in a decaying mansion full of dotty servants, hangers-on and ghosts from the past.

Had Merchant Ivory ever gone Down Under, they’d probably have fashioned something in the vein of this mannered chamber piece.

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For many though, the glacial pacing and starchy performances will be obstacles too high to hurdle.

Neil Smith is a freelance film critic and writer who contributes regularly to Heat, SFX and Screen International. He's a long-time member of the London Film Critics’ Circle and was a contributing editor at Total Film for many years.