Metroland (Starring Christian Bale, Emily Watson, Elsa Zylberstein, Lee Ross. Directed by Philip Saville)

It’s a bit hard to empathise with the cosseted middle-class Brits in this careful, well-written, well-acted screen version of Julian Barnes’ novel about two English suburbanites.

It’s 1977, Chris (Bale) is living contentedly in the suburbs outside London (the Metroland of the title) with his wife Marion (Watson) and baby daughter, when his old friend Toni (Lee Ross) comes to stay. Would-be poet Toni, who has travelled the world and never settled down, frowns on Chris’ middle-class life and does everything he can to disrupt things.

His presence causes Chris to re-examine the choices he has made and to re-live a time he spent in Paris in the late 60s when he harboured ambitions to be a photographer and lived with a beautiful and passionate Frenchwoman (Zylberstein), before falling in love with his wife.

The themes of youthful idealism versus compromise, freedom versus stability, and the conflicting demands of friendship and love are intelligently explored, and the actors are impressive, especially Bale, the little boy from Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun, now a hunky twentysomething. Ultimately though, this study of bourgeois angst lacks the bite, the humour and the visual flair to really engage the emotions. (CD)