With a mind still whizzing with M's tour news this evening I went with Angela tonight to our old cinematic stomping ground of the Barbican to see the last proper Merchant Ivory production THE WHITE COUNTESS made just before producer Ismail Merchant's death.

Sadly this is no HOWARDS END or THE REMAINS OF THE DAY... in fact quite the reverse. Despite being written by Kazou Ishiguro it has the distinct whiff of a 1940s b-movie, probably starring Hedy Lamarr and John Payne. Picture if you can a beautiful Russian widow Sofia (Natasha Richardson) who lives in a 2 room flat in a Shanghai back street with her mother-in-law, sister-in-law,aunt and uncle (Lynn Redgrave, Madeleine Potter, Vanessa Redgrave, John Wood) who are totally reliant on the money brought in from her evenings spent working as a dancer/tart in a cheap dance-hall. Despite this her family look down on her morals and do all they can from preventing her 'tainting' her daughter Katya (Madeleine Daly, Potter's own daughter). Into their Chekhovian lives stumbles (literally) American Todd Jackson (Ralph Fiennes). A former diplomat, still mourning the death of his young daughter in the terrorist bombing that blinded him, whose meeting with the honey-voiced Sofia spurs him on to acting on his greatest wish... to, um, open a nightclub called THE WHITE COUNTESS. As you do. Their reticent, love-at-walking-stick's length mutual dependence is played out against a backdrop of ominous Japanese invasion.

Fiennes turns in another watery-eyed sadsack performance - all sighs and wan smiles. Richardson is luminous and always watchable but the whole film seems to be powered on some serious low-wattage. Vanessa and John Wood have a delightful scene where against the wishes of the rest of the family they pay a call on the French Consulate to visit someone they knew in Russia in The Good Old Days and end up being driven back to their back street flat in a large shiny car much to their delight. Otherwise it drifts by like one of the boats seen sailing to Hong Kong at the end. Largely at fault is Ivory's respectful, unispired direction and Ishiguro's erratic script. No more so than when Fiennes' character asks his screamingly shady Japanese friend (Hiroyuki Sanada) to fill his club with Chinese Communists, Japanese soldiers and politicians to create a heady political mix, then later in the film tells him his club is an escape from the growing political instability.