Parky at the Pictures (DVD 3/10/2013)

Filmed on a Red digital camera in chic monochrome and set in an age of CCTV surveillance and smartphones, this couldn't be more different from Kenneth Branagh's lustrous and much more traditional 1993 version. Yet, just as there Keanu Reeves had the odd awkward moment declaiming verse, so one or two of this Wheedonworld ensemble similarly struggle to master the tricky art of making recitation seem like everyday speech. Moreover, the modern approach exposes the melodramatic nature of a couple of the more egregious contrivances (although an amusingly knowing look of puzzlement comes close to vindicating one). Yet this remains highly entertaining and could earn converts from opposite ends of the Wheedon spectrum.

Leonato (Clark Gregg), the governor of Messina, learns that Aragonese prince Don Pedro (Reed Diamond) has been successful in battle and plans to stay a month with his loyal lieutenants Claudio (Fran Kranz) and Benedick (Alexis Denisof). Leonato's daughter, Hero (Jillian Morgese), blushes at the news because she has a crush on Claudio and her cousin, Beatrice (Amy Acker), delights in teasing her about it, as they prepare food in the kitchen. However, she is less pleased to hear that Benedick will be among the party, as she despises him and questions the role that such a feeble soldier might have played in the victory.

Benedick is every bit as cynical as Beatrice and, as Pedro arrives in a stretch limo with his wicked but reconciled brother Don John (Sean Maher), he confesses to Claudio that he doesn't think Hero is much of a catch. Required to share a room with single beds and shelves full of cuddly toys, the friends wrestle as they banter and Pedro joins in by betting Benedick that he will also eventually succumb to the charms of a good woman. Stung by the slur that he would ever be so foolish as to lose his heart, Benedick avers that they would be free to stuff and mount him if a woman somehow managed to snare him. But Pedro has not come simply to taunt Benedick and offers to help Claudio by impersonating him during that evening's revels and sweet-talking Hero before arranging a match with his vassal, Leonato.

Somewhat dubious that this is the best way to proceed, Claudio accepts his master's advice and guzzles down several cocktails as he watches from a distance as the masked ball gets into full swing. Indeed, as a jazz band plays indoors, a pair of trapeze artists cavort above the pool and all seems to be going smoothly. But we have just been privy to a conversation between Don John, his blonde mistress Conrade (Riki Lindhome) and his scheming servant Borachio (Spencer Treat Clark), in which they plot to avenge the prince's humiliation at the hands of his brother and his retinue by preventing Claudio and Hero's union.

Bidding Hero to select the man of her dreams and not one to please her father, Beatrice spots Benedick in an Arab headdress that singularly fails to disguise his identity. So, she launches into a speech about disliking bearded men and loathing Benedick in particular, as he is such a buffoon. Fighting off the advances of a drunk on the same garden bench, she watches Benedick enduring the insults while powerless to defend himself without giving himself away. However, she gets stuck behind the pawing lech in the conga line snaking around the tiered garden, which is edged by a lake. John, Conrade and Borachio suddenly appear from below its glassy surface and close in on Claudio, who has been snorkelling. They deliberately mistake him for Benedick so they can poison his mind against Hero and convince him that Pedro has been trying to win her for himself.

When Claudio confides what he heard to Benedick, he is told to grow up and not listen to gossip. However, Benedick has been nettled by Beatrice's remarks (as he had failed to notice that she had rumbled him) and is still chuntering about being described as Pedro's fool when he wanders into the kitchen to find him strumming a guitar and congratulating himself on persuading Leonato to give his consent for Hero's wedding. The assembled smirk as Benedick continues to rant about Beatrice's cruel tongue and a brief flashback reveals them once to have been passionate lovers who now blame each other for ending the affair. The mood is momentarily soured as the peevish Claudio sulks at being deceived by Pedro. But, when the truth emerges, he is as speechless with joy as Hero and they kiss.

Beatrice toasts the happy couple before turning down her uncle's offer to find her a beau. But no sooner has she left the room than Pedro and Leonato begin discussing a way to bring her and Benedick together. However, John has been eavesdropping by the door and Borachio promises to use his influence with Margaret the housemaid (Ashley Johnson) to ruin Hero's reputation and cause a scandal that will crush both Claudio and Leonato.

The following morning, Benedick goes for a jog in the grounds and bemoans the fact that Claudio has gone soft since falling in love. He is adamant that he will remain a man even if he does meet the perfect woman. However, as he approaches the house, he overhears Pedro, Leonato and Claudio expressing their amazement at Hero's news that Beatrice is besotted with Benedick, but would rather die than let anyone know. Yet, as Claudio stresses (in a splendidly hammy stage whisper, as Benedick dives around outside trying to remain hidden in the smallest of shrubberies while not missing a word), Beatrice is also likely to waste away unless Benedick declares his love - and they all know that isn't going to happen. Pedro suggest this is just as well, as Benedick is not worthy of such a fine gentlewoman and he almost feels jealous that she has fallen for such a clod when he is still available. But he is also relieved that Benedick is so resolute in his bachelorhood, as he would come in for a fearful ribbing if he ever did make a play for her.

Satisfied with their work, the trio trip off to lunch, leaving Benedick to mull over their revelation. As he thinks, he spots Beatrice coming to call him to table and he starts doing press-ups and stomach crunches in order to impress her. He also tries to detect any signs of adoration and, while she returns indoors thinking he has gone mad, he finds hidden meaning in her words and concludes that he would be an imbecile not to romance her, as she clearly adores him. Beatrice, meanwhile, has fallen down the cellar steps in stupefaction at hearing Hero and Margaret tattling in the kitchen about Benedick's sudden enamourment. She trips over and bangs her head on the underside of a work surface in straining to hear, as Hero laments that she is too self-obsessed and stubborn to accept the love he cannot proclaim for fear she will ridicule him.

Ruffled by being branded a scold incapable of feeling, Beatrice is touched by the fact that Benedick loves her and is too bashful to admit it. Moreover, she quite likes the idea of taming him and wonders whether she hasn't misjudged him. Upstairs, Benedick is thinking the same thing, as he lies on his bed and gazes at Beatrice's framed photograph. Pedro and Claudio pop in to bait him, but are distracted when John enters and asks to have  a word in private with his brother. As Benedick makes himself scare by insisting that his odd behaviour has been brought on by toothache, John tells Claudio that he has reason to believe Hero is not the chaste maiden she purports and offers to show him proof if he will spy on her window that evening from the orchard. Claudio grabs John by the lapel and forces him against the wall in fury. But he insists he is only striving to spare his friend pain and guarantees that they will witness her welcoming a suitor into her chamber on the very eve of her wedding.

As night draws on, Constable Dogberry (Nathan Fillion) comes to check on Verges (Tom Lenk) and the other members of the Messina night watch (Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney). He is not the brightest fellow and would rather turn a blind eye to misdemeanour and felony alike if it ensures him a quiet life. However, he urges his charges to keep an eye out for knaves and summon him if they have any problems. As they patrol the perimeter of Leonato's house, the watchmen see Conrade and Borachio drinking and sharing a joint. They also hear the latter confessing to coercing Margaret into trying on Hero's wedding dress and then ravishing her close to the window so that the onlooking Claudio could be tricked into thinking his betrothed was cuckolding him. Thus, they draw their guns and take the pair into custody for Dogberry to question them.

As the caterers arrive the next morning, Margaret tries to convince Hero to wear a different gown for the ceremony to the one she had used to betray her. However, she refuses to budge and is more concerned for Beatrice, who seems to have developed a cold. Margaret offers her some cardius benedictus and she is comforted by the name and begins to perk up. In the garden below, Leonato tells Dogberry that he is too busy to attend to the villains he has apprehended and urges him to interrogate them himself. He also welcomes Friar Francis (Paul Meston), who has come to conduct the service, and they join the guests gathered on the lawn.

Beatrice notices immediately that Benedick has shaved and is pleased that he tries to make light of an awkward moment when the friar asks if there are any impediments to the nuptials and Claudio starts speaking in riddles about grievous wrongs. However, he continues to ramble and shocks everyone by pushing Hero back towards her father when he proudly states that he is ready to give her away in holy matrimony. When Leonato protests, Claudio accuses Hero of cavorting with her lover in public view and she bursts into tears on being called a wanton. Pedro wishes he could counter the accusation, but cannot disbelieve the evidence of his own eyes and bitterly regrets having acted as matchmaker. John interrupts before his brother can go on to describe the debaucheries they saw Hero relish and ushers him and Claudio away as Hero faints in distress.

Benedick rushes to help Beatrice attend to her stricken cousin and they cannot believe that Claudio has repudiated her. Friar Francis cautions them to remain calm and, having assured himself that Hero is still a maid, he suggests that they broadcast the news that she has died of a broken heart in order see how Claudio responds to having been the cause of her demise. However, while conceding that this is a decent plan, Benedick vows to make Don John pay for his undoubted part in the defamation  But Beatrice also wants Claudio to suffer and tells Benedick that she could only love a man who would sacrifice a friendship in the name of right. He admits his feelings for her and she is taken aback by his honesty and allows that she loves him, too. They kiss and he asks her to make any demand of him to prove his fealty. However, he is crestfallen when she insists that she will only accept his hand once it has killed Claudio.

Meanwhile, Dogberry and Verges are quizzing Borachio and Conrade in front of the locall sexton (Romy Rosemont). In his customary manner, the former is mangling his words in a pompous bid to seem important and he is affronted when Conrade calls him an ass. Luckily, the sexton is quicker on the uptake and realises that the watchmen have made a significant arrest and suggests that the miscreants should be brought before Leonato to explain their actions.

They arrive just as the count's aide (Joshua Zar) tells him that Don John has absconded. However, Benedick still knows nothing of these developments and resigns his post with Pedro before slapping Claudio and challenges him to a duel for slandering Hero. Yet he accompanies the pair as they go to offer Leonato their condolences for the loss of his daughter. They apologise for acting so rashly on misinformation and Leonato says he can only forgive them if they atone for their error by ensuring that everyone in Messina knows that Hero died a virgin. He also tells Claudio that he will have to marry his niece in order to be shriven, but, while agreeing that Margaret was hoodwinked into shaming her mistress, Leonato condemns Borachio, who is taken away by the watchmen, leaving Dogberry and Verges to lock themselves out of their own vehicle (just as earlier, in classic Laurel and Hardy style, the stouter Dogberry had tried to put on his slimmer partner's jacket).

As dawn breaks, a funeral procession winds its way through the grounds, with everyone carrying a small candle in a wine glass. Hero watches with Beatrice from the terrace and half smiles as she sees Claudio's face ashen with genuine remorse and knows that things will soon be put right. Shortly afterwards, Benedick shows Margaret some verses he has composed in Beatrice's honour and she is cutting in her criticism. Undeterred, he attempts a song while standing on his balcony, but thinks better of it and curses that he is not a more poetic soul. He tosses the paper over the wall on seeing Beatrice approach. But, while he tries to reassure her that Claudio will pay for his error, she snaps that deeds alone will suffice rather than promises. They begin joking about what it was that first caused them to be attracted to one another. But they are interrupted by Ursula the maid (Emma Bates) bringing the tidings that Hero has been framed by Don John and his cohorts and that Friar Francis has returned to marry her to Claudio.

Benedick begs Leonato to allow it to be a double wedding and can barely contain his excitemtn as Claudio and Pedro arrive for what they think will be an arranged match. Leonato calls forth a bride with her veil down and asks Claudio if he takes her without reservation. He makes an unfortunate comment about Ethiopians in assenting, but Hero still lifts the lace to reveal she is alive and still very much in love. As everyone rejoices, it slips out that Beatrice and Benedick had been bluffed into acknowledging their feelings for each other and it is only when his discarded poem and a letter she had dared not send are produced that they finally embrace. As Leonato and Pedro see a phone clip of Don John being apprehended at the airport, the newlyweds head inside to dance. Pedro wishes that he could experience such happiness and Benedick smirkingly suggests that he finds himself a wife.

Filming in his own Spanish-style villa in Santa Monica, Joss Wheedon has created one of the finest Americanisations of a Shakespeare play. The tone owes much to the classic screwball comedies of the 1930s, with Amy Acker rising to the challenge to out-Kate Hepburn with a display of crackling intellect and emancipated confidence that makes her Beatrice all the more irresistible to a Benedick that Alexis Denisof dares to present as a new man fighting his baser macho instincts before surrendering to his liberal self. By contrast, Claudio is a man-child, who even resorts to casual racism while accepting Leonato's bargain before being reunited with the simpering Hero.

There's no question that Claudio and Hero are a dull couple and the pace drops whenever they become the focus of the action. Discovered as an extra on the set of The Avengers, Jillian Morgese does her best with obviously unfamiliar dialogue, while Fran Kranz is allowed to mug just enough to clue the audience that everyone before and behind the camera knows what a hot-headed brat he is. Indeed, this element of youthful exuberance and intemperance is made to seem rather dull by the badinage between Beatrice and Benedick, as though Wheedon was dropping a huge hint to his Hollywood contemporaries that not every movie has to be aimed at adolescent boys of all ages. The decision to cast actors this constituency might recognise is inspired and, if it creates a clamour for thoughtful literary updates among teens and twentysomethings, then all to the good.

Wheedon is clearly enchanted by the text and this is very much a labour of love that has been anything but lost. The camerawork by Jay Hunter is as light as the prose and Wheedon makes exceptional use of the setting to keep the scenes flowing into one another. He also cleverly casts a noirish pall over the Don John subplot and exploits the black-and-white imagery to evoke such seething tales of treachery as Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944). However, even Wheedon struggles to salvage anything from the Dogberry and Verges sequences, in spite of the valiant efforts of Nathan Fillion and Tom Lenk to play the hapless duo as slapstick dullards. Yet both Acker and Denisof prove much more graceful physical comedians during their respective eavesdropping episodes, while there is much more sensuality in their climactic kiss than there is in the gauche pecks exchanged by Kranz and Morgese. Indeed, were he still around, Shakespeare would already be busy on a sequel, in which Claudio and Hero are drifting apart because he suspects her of flirting with the pool boy and Benedick and Beatrice are once more driven apart after being forced to take sides. Heaven forfend.

Although it is much more restrained, Drake Doremus's Breathe In stumbles into some rather obvious narrative pitfalls. These are largely of its own making, however, as Doremus and co-writer Ben York Jones have left it to the cast to improvise their dialogue around a loose outline and, as a consequence, the performers trapped in the subplots have striven too hard to make the most of their fleeting opportunities. In many ways feeling like a dialled-down companion piece to Doremus's Like Crazy (2011), which also starred Felicity Jones, this is not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination. Indeed, it often resembles one of Ingmar Bergman's chamber dramas or one of Woody Allen's more earnest imitations. But it also lacks originality and rather collapses into melodrama in the final reel.

As the action opens, Guy Pearce is posing wife Amy Ryan and teenage daughter Mackenzie Davis for the photograph that will go out with the annual round-robin message to their friends. With so many of their peers divorced or heading for the courts, Pearce and Ryan are understandably pleased that they have managed to stay together, especially as they had a few difficult years when Pearce was trying to make it as a rock musician. Now, he teaches music at Davis's upstate high school and occasionally plays the cello with the New York City Symphony Orchestra. However, Pearce is feeling increasingly nostalgic about his footloose days and the prospect of an audition for a full-time chair with the orchestra concerns Ryan that the stability she has worked so hard to achieve will be jeopardised.

More pressingly, however, the family is preparing to welcome 18 year-old British exchange student, Felicity Jones, who arrives in the middle of a thunderstorm and seems frustrated to have landed herself in the suburbs rather than in the centre of Manhattan. She appears more assured than Davis, who is going through a rough patch after breaking up with boyfriend Brendan Dooling. But they get along well enough and Ryan is too preoccupied with her cookie jar collection to notice that Pearce has also taken a shine to their guest. As her teacher, however, he is surprised by her reluctance to practice and decides to put her on the spot by asking her to play a tricky Chopin piano composition in front of the entire class. Starting nervously, Jones throws herself into the piece and her fellow students are as impressed as Pearce, who convinces himself that she is also an outsider artist and he takes to having long conversations with her, in which she flatters him about his own talent and he begins to wonder whether he has finally found the soulmate who truly understands him.

The sudden change in his mood is detected by Ryan, however. Moreover, Davis is also becoming increasingly irritated by Jones and resents the impact she is having on Dooling. He invites Jones to a party in the city and she is angry when he turns up alone expecting to go on a date. But he exacts his revenge for her rejection by telling his classmates that they slept together and Jones seeks solace with Pearce, who succumbs to his daydreams and kisses her. Unfortunately, the embrace is witnessed by Davis, who becomes so distraught at the turn events are taking that she crashes the car and Ryan summons Pearce to their daughter's hospital bedside.

Davis makes a full recovery and Jones returns to Britain (and the family and/or romantic problems from which she seems to have been running away). As the film ends, Pearce once again poses his family for the camera. They are all aware how close their idyll came to being shattering and there is an ironic acknowledgement that the accompanying letter won't quite be as detailed as it had been in previous years. Moreover, as Davis will soon be going to college, one is left to speculate how Pearce and Ryan will fare in her absence.

Neatly capturing the aura of self-congratulation in which Ryan has cocooned her idealised version of domestic bliss, Doremus has no difficulty in persuading the audience that thousands of other residences across America operate along much the same lines. Providing the perfect complement is the regret gnawing away at a devoted husband and father who wishes he had done things differently and lingeringly wonders whether he still could. But the introduction of a chic temptress at the very moment that the couple's attention should be focused on their obviously troubled daughter feels like a device used in a screenwriting workshop rather than a fact of life. Consequently, from the moment Jones steps across the threshold, the story starts heading into soap territory and Doremus's reluctance to stop it is hugely disappointing.

Jones shows well enough as the stranger who keeps her backstory closely guarded and falls as much prey to her own vulnerability as to Pearce's inveiglement. Playing somewhat against type, he also conveys something of the egotistical and sexual wistfulness at the root of most male midlife crises. But Ryan is lazily presented as something of a passive aggressive termagant, while Davis is required to do little more than sulk. Kyle MacLachlan and Alexandra Wentworth make the most of a choice cameo as a couple of barbecuing neighbours, but the characters involved in the orchestra and high-school subplots remain ciphers and Doremus struggles to draw the disparate threads together. Thus, while this is polished and serenely photographed by John Guleserian in a range of blues and beiges that match the soulful strains of Dustin O'Halloran's piano score, it always feels detached from reality and, rather like Ryan's homemaking, it seems just a touch too deliberate.

The plotting also proves problematic and even more suspension of disbelief is required in the case of Iain Softley's Trap For Cinderella, an adaptation of a Sébastien Japrisot novel that was previously filmed in 1965 by André Cayatte. An underrated director whose legal thrillers owed more to the classical style than the nouvelle vague from which Softley has clearly taken his stylistic inspiration, Cayatte is barely known in this country and it's a shame that Piège pour Cendrillon is not available on video or DVD to compare with this determinedly trendy updating. Striving to return to British basics after more than a decade producing a string of Hollywood-backed projects that included The Wings of the Dove (1997), K-PAX (2001), The Skeleton Key (2005) and Inkheart (2008), Softley succeeds in capturing the hedonist sense of entitlement that characterises the new generation of bright young things. But, amidst the twists and turns of the fiendish narrative, he struggles to keep his cast from ramping up the melodrama, with the result that while this never ceases to tease or entertain, it rarely comes close to convincing.

In the still of an idyllic night in the south of France, an explosion rips through the heart of a luxurious chateau and a burning female plummets from an upper-storey window. She is taken to Switzerland, where her face requires major reconstructive surgery and a psychiatrist (Emilia Fox) tries to help Michelle (Tuppence Middleton) overcome her amnesia by explaining that she lost her parents at the age of nine and was raised by her Aunt Elinor (Frances De La Tour) and her personal assistant, Julia (Kerry Fox). But Micky remembers nothing and doesn't even recognise Julia when she comes to take her back to London.

Following a nightmare about the blaze, Micky is awoken by the phone ringing and overhears Julia mentioning someone called Jake (Aneurin Barnard). When she asks about her daily life, Julia explains that, while she had lots of boyfriends, her closest companion was Domenica (Alexandra Roach), whom she had known since she was nine years old, as she was the daughter of Aunt Elinor's housekeeper. Julia also reveals that Micky will inherit her aunt's fortune when she turns 21 and she becomes more puzzled than ever by flashes of recollection about the night of the fire that still make no sense.

Giving Julia the slip, Micky takes a taxi to see the family lawyer, Chance (Alex Jennings), and bumps into Jake on the street outside. They go back to his place to catch up and he informs her that they had broken up on her insistence. He asks to see the burns on her hands and kisses her. She inquires whether she had been unfaithful to him and he laughs that he wouldn't be surprised. Jake also gives her the keys to her flat in Hoxton and stuns her by breaking the news that Do had perished in the fire.

Leaving in distress, Micky goes to her flat and stares at the photographs on the walls in the hope of sparking a memory. She finds lots of pictures of Do and a suitcase containing her belongings. Rooting around, she finds some letters from Aunt Elinor and a diary, which opens with a happy entry about Do being reunited with Micky after many years when she came into the bank in which she worked as a clerk. They had agreed to meet up that night and the mousy Do had been starstuck by her chic friend, who regularly featured in the society pages of the glossy magazines. Yet she had also seemed melancholic back at her flat, as she chatted to a man on the phone and gulped down pills. But Micky had been back to her effervescent best in the morning and had made Do promise to come to a party that night as she dashed out with a portfolio of photographs.

Jealous of Jake, Do had tried to leave the event early. But Micky had jumped into her cab and they had gone back to Do's place to see the snapshots she had kept of their childhood. It had emerged that Do's father (Tim Walters) had killed himself in France and that her mother (Elizabeth Healey) had died soon after returning to Britain. But Do had never forgotten that the young Micky (Ciara Southwood) had saved her (Maisie Lloyd) from drowning in the swimming pool at Aunt Elinor's chateau and, therefore, she had readily accepted when Micky had invited her to move into her flat.

One day, while Micky was out, Do had answered the phone to Elinor, who was surprised that the pair had hooked up again, given what had happened in the past. At this point, the diary flashback sequence is interrupted by Julia walking in calmly to inform Micky that she is really Do and has to keep up the pretence or they will both be in serious trouble. Distraught at the revelation, Micky/Do runs away and checks into a seedy hotel in Do's name. She continues to peruse the diary and discovers that she had been besotted with Micky to the point of copying her clothing and wearing identical wigs on nights out. However, she had also deeply resented her casual pick-ups and had detested Jake for trying to come between them.

As she reads on, Micky/Do learns that Do had intercepted a cheque from Elinor and had started sending her affectionately nibling letters, which ceased when Micky and Do had fallen out over Jake and Do had written to Elinor under her own name to lament that Micky was running with the wrong crowd. However, the diary entries cease at this point and Micky/Do is forced to seek out Julia for clarification about what happened next.

Julia explains that Micky had refused to go to France on learning that Elinor was dying and that Julia had taken Do to dinner in a bid to talk her into changing Micky's mind. She had also tried to warn her against getting too close to Micky because she had a self-destructive streak and would be all too willing to take Do down with her. Furthermore, she had revealed that she knew all about Do's letters to Elinor and had confided that she thought it was unfair that someone with such good intentions should not be properly rewarded for her efforts. Consequently, she had encouraged Do to get in touch once they had arrived at the chateau because she had a proposition for her.

Much to her relief, Do had managed to persuade Micky to visit Elinor and, en route, she had admitted to despising her aunt and that Julia had been more responsible for her upbringing. After they had parked for the night in the middle of nowhere, Do had awoken to see Micky standing on the edge of a precipice gazing into space and she had been unnerved by her wistful air. On reaching the hospice, however, Micky had been put out by Elinor confusing her with Do. But she had snapped out of her funk by the time they had cycled down to the beach, where Micky had tried to teach Do to swim. Unaware that she was being watched by a man on a nearby cliff, Do had slipped away to call Julia from a café and had been reeled into her conspiracy by the discovery that her father had committed suicide after Micky had told her mother that he was having an affair with Elinor.

Julia had convinced Do that Micky had ruined her life once and could easily do so again. So, she agrees to follow her instructions and checks out the pilot light in the bathroom that will be central to their plan. Do had lain awake in bed that night thinking about the unhappy time she had endured following the passing of her parents and views Micky with a jaundiced eye as they sunbathe together the next day. But she still craves Micky's approval and it is only when she swans off to a boat in the harbour with some rich boys and leaves her to walk home alone that Do finally makes up her mind to act.

The following morning, Julia had arrived to break the news of Elinor's demise. But Micky had seemed unconcerned and Do had taken Julia aside to ask how they should proceed. Julia had told Do to wait until exactly 1am on Micky's birthday and then light some candles before disconnecting the gas pipe in the bathroom. She should then jump out of the open window at the end of the corridor and Julia would confirm that she is Micky and then whisk her away to the plastic surgeon (Erich Redman), who would make such a good job of her face that not even Elinor's loyal maid Yvette (Nathalie Paris) would be able to notice any discrepancy.

Realising that she could no longer go back, Do had plied Micky with wine and then given her pills to render her unconscious. She had put Micky in Do's bed and dressed herself in Micky's clothes before lining the corridor with lighted candles and unscrewing the bathroom fitting. Covering her face with a wet towel, she had jumped from the window just as the gas ignited and Julia had driven up just in time to convince the dismayed onlookers that Micky had somehow managed to survive the disaster.

Aghast at learning the truth, Micky/Do wants to go to the police. But Julia convinces her to wait until the will has been read, in the hope that her new wealth will buy her silence. They travel to the Riviera, where Yvette gives Micky/Do a cautious welcome. However, when Micky/Do goes for a drive in Micky's car, she is approached by Serge (Stanley Webber), who reveals that he works in the beachside café and had eavesdropped on Do's telephone conversation with Julia. Moreover, he explains how he had contacted Micky and had shown her the imprint of the message that Do had scribbled on a notepad about tampering with the boiler. They had become lovers and had plotted to do away with Do. But, while Do no longer poses a threat, Serge does and Micky offers him €100,000 if he agrees to keep quiet.

In a panic, Micky/Do tells Julia about Serge's attempt to blackmail her and she urges her to stay calm, as they can rectify the situation after the will has been read. Lying on her bed, Micky/Do wrestles with the conflicting information she has received over the past few days and seems uncertain whether to trust Julia or Serge. She also remains unclear whether she is Micky or Do and decides to make a recording and mails it just as Chance and Julia are opening Elinor's documents. As she awaits news, Micky/Do drives to the café and offers Serge the car as his payoff and he accepts. But, on returning to the chateau, Micky/Do finds Julia in low spirits in the garden. She explains that all their scheming has been in vain because Elinor had left everything to Do and they begin to fight when Micky/Do confesses to having sent the incriminating tape to Chance.

The pair fall into the pool and the action suddenly flashes back to Micky catching Do about to cause the explosion. Ashamed of betraying her friend, Do had apologised and Micky had tried to convince her they should escape together. But a burning wooden frame had collapsed into the corridor and blocked Do's way and she had smiled sadly in telling Micky to save herself. As the memories come flooding back, Micky dashes Julia's skull against the side of the pool and she dies. Scrambling out of the water, Micky rushes to the beach, where she strips off and walks into the water. She starts to swim and finally knows her true identity. As dawn breaks, she is awoken by the tide lapping against her and she walks off slowly along the sand.

Given that Japrisot collaborated under his real name (Jean-Baptiste Rossi) with the director and playwright Jean Anouilh on the screenplay, one would like to think that Cayatte's take on this gleefully convoluted saga would have been pitched somewhere between Henri-Georges Clouzot's Les Diaboliques (1955) and Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958). Iain Softley's impression, however, errs too much towards Barbet Schroeder's Single White Female (1992) or Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan (2010) when it might have been better off heading in the darkly comedic direction of Robert Aldrich's What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). The plot is so stuffed with overripe clichés and caricatures that it needs a much more playfully self-guying approach than Softley felt able to concede. As a consequence of playing so rigorously straight, however, the picture feels mechanical and overly reliant on dramatic and stylistic contrivance. If vital information is not conveyed through a diary entry or an overheard conversation, it is presented as part of a labyrinthine flashback or in interminable expository speeches that often obfuscate as much as they clarify.

The premise comprises ingenuity and hokum in equal measures and it is difficult from this romp to see why Japrisot was dubbed `the French Graham Greene' - although, admittedly, he also provided the material for such fine films as Costa-Gavras's The Sleeping Car Murders (1965), the Jean Becker trio of One Deadly Summer (1983), The Children of the Marshland (1999) and A Crime in Paradise (2001), and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement (2004), as well as the original scripts for René Clément's Rider on the Rain (1970) and Just Jaeckin's erotic classic, Story of O (1975). Perhaps Cayatte was luckier in having the estimable Madeleine Robinson play his scheming factotum and was wiser in casting Dany Carrel as both Michèle and Dominique, as Softley is certainly disadvantaged by the gauche performance of the usually reliable Kerry Fox and the fact that neither Tuppence Middleton nor Alexandra Roach has the experience or screen presence to carry off such tricky roles.

Thus, while this is always highly enjoyable, its pleasures lie partly in the improbabilities of its scenario and the flaws in its translation to the screen. Christian Henson's score is so insistent and stifling that it feels almost parodic, while the dialogue is often dreadfully clumsy. But cinematographer Alex Barber ably captures the contrasts between London and southern France, while costume designer Verity Hawkes has fun blurring the distinction between Micky and Do. Moreover, Softley directs with admirable conviction and it is often clear that this would have collapsed like a pack of cards in lesser hands. But one cannott help wondering how this might have turned out had it been given the greenlight back in 2010, when Imogen Poots and Felicity Jones were joined in the announced cast by Bill Nighy, Brooke Shields, Ed Westwick, Tamsin Egerton and Bill Bailey.

Depressingly, far too many American directors are churning out thudding thrillers like Scott Walker's The Frozen Ground, which is all the more dispiriting as it features two fine actors who deserve better than  such mundane assignments. However, with the Hollywood emphasis being on youth and beauty (as it always has been), Nicolas Cage and John Cusack may just have to get used to the fact that the blockbuster days are over and, like so many of their forebears, they are going to have to eke out the remainder of their distinguished careers in potboilers that really should go direct to DVD rather than cluttering up an already crowded theatrical schedule. Based on actual events that took place in Anchorage, Alaska in 1984, this purports to be a tribute to the 17-21 women murdered by serial killer Robert Hansen and Walker seeks to reinforce his sincerity by showing photos of the victims to the accompaniment of a tacky soft rock track before the closing credits. However, all he succeeds in doing is highlighting the cynical opportunism of a grotesque piece of tasteless exploitation attempting to pass itself off as a heroic police procedural.

When teenage prostitute Vanessa Hudgens is found handcuffed in a motel cabin, the cop who rescued her is so dismayed that his superiors refuse to go after local baker John Cusack that he gathers evidence and posts it to the office of state trooper Nicolas Cage, who is about to quit his job because wife Radha Mitchell thinks he is too obsessive and they need a change of scenery. When the body of a young girl is found in the Kink River forests, however, Cage is determined to get to the bottom of a case that has seen dozens of girls like Gia Mantegna go missing after telling friends they were off to meet a photographer. The press is certain that there is a serial killer preying on prostitutes and topless dancers, but Lieutenant Kevin Dunn and DA Kurt Fuller insist the recent deaths have coincidental similarities rather than follow identifiable trends.

Cage is unconvinced, however, and reckons that the perpetrator is a meticulous man with a low profile who probably works shifts. He pores through over 600 unsolved cases in the hope of finding linking clues. Eventually, he comes to Hudgens's file, in which she describes meeting a man in a camper van with her pet dog. As he digs deeper, Cage establishes that Cusack had served time for rape back in 1971 and goes on a search of the red-light district with vice cop Michael McGrady hoping that one of the girls will recognise Hudgens from her photo. He also meets up with Katie Wallack, whose sister has disappeared, and she gives him the identical bracelet that she knows she would have been wearing when she was abducted.

Much to his relief, Cage finds Hudgens and she describes (in flashback) how Cusack had chained her to a post in his den while wife Katherine LaNasa and their children were away and how she had nearly been found by a snooping neighbour, as she had cowered in a room full of hunting trophies. She says that Cusack's eyes went black as he raped her and she had left a tampon inside her in the hope of collecting semen that could be used as evidence against him. But, even though she had escaped her ordeal, the cops had not believed her story and Cusack had remained at large. Upset that Cage seems so powerless to help her, Hudgens goes back to the red-light district, where she is hired as a dancer by Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, who gives her crystal meth to overcome her stage fright and she is surrendering to the music at her pole when she panics on spotting pimp Curtis `50 Cent' Jackson, who tells her that she owes him and will come running to him one day for protection.

Meanwhile, the morgue calls Cage about another body found in the wilds that has been hideously mutilated and he gets home to urge his six year-old daughter not to grow up. As if to emphasise the perils that lie ahead, the action cuts to Cusack bundling the terrified Mantegna into his plane and he takes off from a small airfield and guns her down as she tries to run away. He takes her heart-shaped necklace as a souvenir and finishes her off with another bullet from close range.

Cage meets Hudgens at a roller rink and pleads with her to testify against Cusack. She says she risks too much if they fail to make the case stick and has learnt not to trust people after her mother allowed her to be abused as a child. But Cage convinces her of his integrity by telling her how he lost his sister on his 21st birthday when a drunk driver killed her and she suddenly appreciates that he knows all about crimes going unpunished. Later that night, Cusack sees Hudgens dancing at the club and leaves in a hurry, as he knows she could identify him. However, she is also terrified that he will come after her and Cage only just catches her at the airport as she seeks to flee. He informs her that she survived to help put Cusack behind bars and offers to shelter her at his house until they can take her statement.

Unfortunately, Mitchell is furious that Cage has brought such a woman into their home and, overhearing the argument, Hudgens slips away and takes a room in 50 Cent's downtown dive. He puts her back on the snowy streets and she is disconcerted to see a moose wandering around a back alley. Unaware that both Cage and Cusack are searching for her, she returns to O'Keefe's club and overdoses on pills and cocaine in a toilet cubicle, where she is found by one of Cage's crew and taken into safe custody, as a seething Cusack looks on from the shadows.

Sitting by her bed waiting for Hudgens to come round, Cage sees a photo of her mother and she reveals she always thought she was her sister as she had had her at 15. But Hudgens has never forgiven her for letting an uncle harm her and wishes she could find someone who could reassure her that everything is going to be okay. Cage promises he will nail Cusack and goes on surveillance outside his house. However, he and Sergeant Dean Norris are spotted and Cusack piles everything that could incriminate him into his car and gives Cage the slip in order to take off in his plane to dump the evidence. Recklessly, however, he keeps the bracelet belonging to Wallack's sister.

Armed with a profile compiled by the FBI, Cage urges Fuller to grant him a search warrant so he can find hard evidence linking Cusack to the killings. He agrees, but the delay enables Cusack to bribe thug Brad William Henke into finding Hudgens and he threatens 50 Cent that he will kill him for an unpaid debt unless he hands the girl over within two days. As Matt Gerald and Brett Baker lead the search of Cusack's property, Cage interrogates his suspect, who freely admits that he uses prostitutes for oral sex as he doesn't want someone he loves performing such a sordid act. He also acknowledges his 1971 rape conviction and says he has served his time and cannot be linked to the current crimes. Cage queries why 12 women would all describe an identical method of kidnapping and assault, but Cusack insists the evidence is circumstantial and Cage knows he needs to find a .223 rifle on the premises that would connect Cusack with the wounds found on the dead girls.

He tries to taunt Cusack into losing control and gambles on charging him, even though the search has yet to turn up evidence of anything other than insurance fraud. He drives to the house and is sickened to see the den is exactly as Hudgens had described it and he implores his team to leave no stone unturned in the hunt for the vital clues. Knowing he will need Hudgens to testify, he coaxes her into going to a safe house prior to an interview with Cusack's attorney. But, just as Gerrard's unit find .223 guns hidden in a secret alcove in the ceiling and Mitchell tells Cage that he shouldn't quit the force because being a cop is who he is, Hudgens gets cold feet and gives her guard the slip and heads back to 50 Cent's den to collect her belongings.

Lo and behold, he offers to give her a lift and calls Henke to make the trade. However, as 50 Cent tries to pull a fast one by brandishing a gun, Hudgens realises she is in danger and steals a car and heads back into town. Henke shoots the pimp and comes after her, as she calls Cage on the car phone to arrange a rendezvous at 50 Cent's place. Cage arrives just in time to rescue Hudgens from being smuggled down the fire escape and gets back to headquarters to see Fuller announce that he is ready to free Cusack as the evidence against him is too flimsy to stand up in court. Deciding to pull a fast one, Cage confronts Cusack with a flying log found in his bedroom marked with the places where some of the corpses had been found. He insists that the tags simply indicate his favourite hunting spots, so Cage puts Wallack's bracelet on the table and Cusack flinches. Moreover, the door of the interrogation room falls open and Cusack sees Hudgens in the corridor and jumps to his feet and screams that he should have killed her when he had the chance.

Cage leaves in satisfied silence and a montage shows Cusack being arraigned and then helicoptered into the wasteland to help find the remaining bodies. A caption informs us that Cage was promoted to commander and remained with the force until he retired, while Hudgens became a mother of three. But the final insult comes with the snapshots of the real victims and Walker stoops so low as to dissolve a shot of Hudgens with the actual Cindy Paulsen, who is praised for finally speaking out about her shocking experiences.

As with so many Hollywood studio movies at the moment, this is wildly overwritten to ensure that nobody in the audience can possibly miss the subtleties of the plotting and characterisation. But it also feels as though the actors need plenty of words to validate their performances and it is intriguing to compare Cage's earnestly garrulous cop with Cusack's taciturn killer, as though the debuting Walker somehow feels that eloquence is a badge of honour - hence his use of the opening quotation from Isaiah: `As a sheep before its shearers is silent, so did he not open his mouth.' Yet neither Cage nor Cusack entirely convinces and Hudgens does a much better job in breaking away from her High School Musical image than Cusack does from his erstwhile romcom persona. But such are the limitations of Walker's cumbersome screenplay and perfunctory direction that the cast can almost be exonerated.

It's never a good sign when a picture has 30 credited producers and this often feels as though it has been assembled by numbers. Patrick Murguia's cinematography capably captures the harshness of the frozen terrain and the grimness of the red-light district, while production designer Clark Hunter creates a creepy lair for Cusack's predator. But Lorne Balfe's score booms as hollowly as the crass dialogue and advertising veteran Walker's visual sense this has more in common with a BritCrime cheapie than the bullet-headed crime dramas like Alan J. Pakula's Klute (1971), which New Hollywood used to make so well.

A very different thriller is presented by Paul Hyett in The Seasoning House, a debut feature that is set in a backwoods brothel in the years following the various civil wars that ripped apart the former Yugoslavia in the mid-1990s. Yet, while the early scenes make a passable pretence of cleaving to social realism, this quickly comes to rely on the kind of generic thrills for which Hyett has long been producing special effects. Thus, while it is more than competently made and reeks of the sourest atmosphere generated by any British horror in recent times, this winds up being yet another exposé of macho bestiality and female exploitation that culminates in a desperate chase and a twist ending.

As she wanders through the narrow corridors of the `seasoning house' that is both her home and prison, deaf-mute teenager Rosie Day thinks back to the moment she was captured by a militia unit led by the sadistic Sean Pertwee. She had looked on helplessly as mother Anna Walton was gunned down in trying to protect her younger sister before being bundled into a truck and brought to the woodland brothel run by Kevin Howarth. He had taken a shine to Day and taught her how to clean the girls chained to their beds and give them doses of heroin to placate them for their customers. He even promises her that he will take her away from all this when the time is right and even entrusts her with a key that supposedly opens every door in the place. But he has no idea that Day can slip through the ventilation grille in her room and scurry through the eaves and crawlspaces between the walls to keep an eye on everything that happens in this godforsaken cathouse.

One night, while making her rounds, Day is delighted to discover that newcomer Jemma Powell knows sign language and she returns to her room after hours to bring her a piece of chocolate and chat about life on the outside. She even starts sleeping on Powell's bed and uses her acute sensitivity to vibration to know when Howarth and hulking sidekick David Lemberg are making their rounds. Powell smiles sadly as Day cooks her latest fix and reassures her that it helps numb the pain. But her next client is a cruel brute who leaves her with a broken pelvis and such severe facial bruising that local doctor Philip Anthony pleads with Howarth to take better care of his `stock'.

Dismayed by the treatment meted out to her friend, Day gives her the angel necklace that her mother had assured her would always keep her safe. But her fate is sealed when Pertwee pays Howarth a visit and the Neanderthal Ryan Oliva uses his forearm to choke her during intercourse. Watching from the vent shaft, Day slips into the room and repeatedly stabs Oliva with a syringe. Despite spewing blood, he makes another attempt to grab Day (after she discovers that Powell is dead with her necklace gripped between her fingers) and she kills him during an assault so frenzied that she only just manages to escape before a cursing Pertwee demands retribution.

Already angry with Howarth because he has heard rumours that he is going to turn him in to the peacetime authorities, Pertwee orders younger brother Alec Utgoff and underlings Daniel Vivian and James Bartlett to capture Day. However, she knows her terrain too well and causes Bartlett to fall to his death when he tries to reach her lofty perch. Eager to protect Day when Pertwee smoke bombs the air vents, Howarth dispatches Vivian with a gunshot and charges out into the forest when Day manages to find a gap in the window defences (having found out that the key Howarth had given her opens nothing at all).

Aghast at stumbling across the rotting corpses of her former charges in a clearing, Day finds herself at the centre of a Mexican stand-off involving Howarth, Pertwee and Utgoff that culminates in Day fleeing while Pertwee mourns the death of his brother and exacts his pitiless revenge. Day seeks sanctuary with blonde Abigail Hamilton, who tends her wounds and leaves the girl to sleep. However, on waking, Day realises that Hamilton is Oliva's wife and she has to kill her in order to make her getaway. She stumbles into a remote factory and Pertwee orders the workers to leave so he can punish Day once and for all. But she lures him into the pipes leading off from a dormant  furnace and, when he gets stuck, she covers his eyelids with make-up (as had been her duty with her other sacrificial victims) and slips out on to the roof before seeming to find safety in the arms of Dr Anthony's shocked wife.

Cannily designed by Caroline Story to turn RAF Uxbridge into a Balkan hellhole, this is  technically proficient on almost every level. Adam Etherington's moody lighting of the labyrinthine corridors and cramped wriggle spaces is complemented by his sinuous camerawork, which is deftly cut to the pounding rhythms of Paul E. Francis's score by editor Agnieszka Liggett. And, as one might expect given Hyett's background, the make-up and other effects are retchingly convincing, particularly when Day finds the maggot-riddled cadavers in the woods. But, while Hyett and co-scenarists Conal Palmer and Adrian Rigelsford make compelling use of actual case studies to establish the setting and the Sadean monstrosity of Howarth and his clients, the action becomes increasingly formulaic once Pertwee starts stalking the elusive Day.

The 18 year-old debutant gives an excellent account of herself as the deaf-mute waif and the way in which she conveys emotion through expression and gesture suggests better things lie ahead. Indeed, the subtlety of her performance contrasts starkly with the more cartoonish antics of Howarth and Pertwee, whose Eastern European accents are far from consistent or convincing. Nevertheless, they make solid contributions to a disturbing tale that may have been more effectve had Hyett stuck closer to the influence of Hideo Nakata and Jaume Balaguero than Wes Craven and Eli Roth in presenting a treatise on the dehumanising depravity of conflict rather than just another slice of chauvinist schlock.

That said, actor-director Katie Aselton seems determined to demonstrate that women are just as capable of making dubious artistic decisions in the horror cause with Black Rock, a cliché-strewn survivalist chiller that was scripted by husband Mark Duplass from her original story. Considering that Duplass and his brother Jay (who shares an executive producer credit) were pivotal players in the emergence of Mumblecore, this represents a disappointing capitulation to crass commercialism and not even a cumbersome post-traumatic stress subtext can dress this up as anything other than humdrum exploitation.

Best friends Kate Bosworth and Lake Bell are returning to their childhood home to camp on the Maine island where they once had so many innocent adventures. Much to Bell's displeasure, they are met at the dock by Katie Aselton, the last member of their once-inseparable triumvirate, who has not spoken to Bell since she slept with the man she was hoping to marry six years earlier. Desperate to coax her pals into forgiving and forgetting, Bosworth dramatically announces she has cancer and, having admitted she lied, nonetheless shames them into spending the weekend together.

Arriving on Black Rock, Bosworth gives Bell and Aselton hand-drawn maps and compasses and challenges them to locate their former den and the place in which they once buried a time capsule. Neither Aselton nor Bell is in the mood for a treasure hunt and they soon start bickering in the woods about the latter's selfish act of betrayal. Back at the beach, Bosworth persuades Bell to apologise for her mistake and she is about to have a heart to heart with Aselton when they spot three armed figure prowling on a brow above them.

They recognise Will Bouvier as the brother of a classmate Bell had once had a crush on and he introduces Jay Paulson and Anselm Richardson as his buddies. Aselton invites them to share their rations and, slightly the worse for wear, she starts flirting with Bouvier as they sit around the campfire. She goes in search of firewood and uses her torch to beckon Bouvier into following her, leaving Paulson and Richardson to explain that they have just been dishonourably discharged from the military after Bouvier used unconventional methods to rescue his unit from an ambush in Hellmand Province.

Aselton is unaware of this darker side, however, as she starts teasing Bouvier, who responds to her sudden misgivings by trying to rape her. She lashes at his skull with a rock and, on coming to see what the commotion is about, Paulson flips and vows vengeance for his fallen comrade. The women try to run away, but they are easily captured and wake battered and bruised the next morning to find themselves tied together, as Richardson tries to dissuade Paulson from doing anything foolish. Noticing that the trio are awake, Paulson stands over them with his rifle. But he becomes riled when Aselton taunts him for not being man enough to take her on in a fist fight and allows them to escape by cutting the rope.

Rushing through the woods in different directions, the women take cover as they try to catch their breath. Bosworth looks down in terror, as Paulson and Richardson pass beneath the tree in which she is hiding. But all three find their way to their former den and agree to lay low until darkness falls when they will make a dash for their boat. However, the plan backfires and Bosworth is shot and killed, leaving Aselton and Bell to make a getaway through the low tide while Paulson checks on Richardson, who has damaged his leg in a fall.

Stripping out of their wet clothes, the pair cling together after Aselton slaps Bell across the face to stop her from hyperventilating. Still naked, they go in search of the time capsule and finally reconcile as they use penknives to sharpen branches into spears, with Aselton admitting that she had allowed herself to blame Bell for the fact that she had made such a mess of her life. Friends again, the duo return to the beach the next morning and Aselton plucks up the courage to attack the wounded Richardson, as he lies defencelessly on a mat. However, he manages to call out to Paulson before being dispatched with his own rifle and the women dash back into the woods intent on leading Paulson to his doom.

That they succeed in doing so after a knife fight on a rocky slope is never in doubt and this already lacklustre picture ends on a resoundingly downbeat note, as Aselton and the bleeding Bell steer the vanquished trio's boat alongside the fishing jetty on the mainland. The implication is that they also now have darkness in their hearts as they emerge from their own private war zone. But any claims that this is a feminist tract are fatally undermined by the gratuitous nudity, the sketchiness of the characterisation, the inconsequence of the moral dilemma dividing the threesome and the sheer lack of conviction in the depiction of any of the violence committed against or by the imperilled women. Indeed, in rehashing so clumsily ideas gleaned from Irving Pichel's The Most Dangerous Game (1933) and John Boorman's Deliverance (1972), this is more likely to provoke sniggers than indignation

The performances are dreadful, although the female leads are not helped by the dismal conversations Duplass has concocted for them. Their male counterparts are even more poorly served, with Bouvier being required to switch from bashful boy to rapacious monster at the flick of a switch in his clearly badly wired brain, while Richardson is briefly permitted to play the African-American voice of reason before the unhinged Paulson is left to rant unchecked. But even the most battle-scarred warriors would still be more than a match for this pampered trio of city gals, especially as they do everything they can to give away their position by talking loudly and at length at every opportunity and rustling or cracking each piece of undergrowth the pass over while creeping and wriggling their way into striking range.

Laudably attempting something different after debuting with the improvised marital romcom, The Freebie (2010), in which she also co-starred, Aselton struggles to prevent the action sequences from seeming like bloody outtakes from the 1970s TV version of Charlie's Angels. Moreover, she cannot resist giving herself an excess of flattering close-ups. But her biggest failing is the reluctance to explore in any depth the very real fears and dangers facing modern women in urban and rural situations alike, while the pounding songs by The Kills on the soundtrack come dangerously close to glamourising the whole sorry tale.

Megan Griffiths tells a similar story in Eden, which takes its place in the roster of sex trafficking exposés alongside Lukas Moodysson's Lilya 4-Ever (2002), Juanita Wilson's As If I Am Not Here (2010) and Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch (2011). The latter featured Jamie Chung, as a dancer in the brothel to which the lobotomised Emily Browning is taken. Here, however, Chung takes the title role in a drama that opens in June 1994 and recalls the experiences of Chong Kim, whose memoir, Not in My Town, is an obvious influence on the screenplay. But, while Griffiths and co-scenarist Richard B. Phillips avoid the sensationalising aspects that undermined Paul Hyett's The Seasoning House (2012), they don't avoid all of the pitfalls in seeking to show American audiences that the sex trade it likes to think is based wholly on consent is as cynical, cruel and exploitative as any other.

Eighteen year-old Jamie Chung lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico with her taxidermist father, Joseph Steven Yang, and her dour mother, Laura Kai Chen, who can never forget the struggles involved in relocating the family from South Korea. Yang is more indulgent, however, and gives Chung the ring they were planning as a graduation present. That night, Chung and pal Tracey Fairaway go to a bar to try out their fake IDs and Chung finds herself chatting to firefighter Scott Mechlowicz. When Fairaway disappears with a pick-up, Chung agrees to let Mechlowicz drive her home. They kiss as he pulls over to make a phone call. But, by the time Chung has taken a closer look at his uniform on the back seat and realised he is an impostor, another vehicle has pulled up and, the next thing she knows, she is bound and gagged in the boot of a car heading for Nevada.

Having been deposited in a brothel based in a converted storage facility in the middle of the desert, Chung wakes to find herself tethered to a bed. She begs to calls her parents, as heavy Roman Roytberg holds her down and Native American nurse Tantoo Cardinal gives her an injection. As Chung sleeps, Cardinal removes the braces from her teeth and transfers her to a bunk bed in a dormitory full of other teenage girls. The next morning, Chung stays put, as the others scurry into the corridor, where local marshal Beau Bridges is handing out kittens that he hopes will teach the girls a sense of responsibility, as one of their number has recently tried to escape and he was forced to gun down the landowner and a deputy who had found her corpse in a ditch. Noticing that Chung has not fallen into line, he tells her that he will give her a few days to acclimatise and then expects her to start working or he will make life very uncomfortable for her folks.

Chung slowly becomes used to the routine of daily medical checks and strikes up a nodding acquaintance with fellow detainee, Jeanine Monterroza. However, she is distraught when she is dressed in PVC and driven to a porn shoot that involves her being handcuffed and whipped by a dominatrix. Back in the dorm, Monterroza tries to calm her down by singing to her. But the workload is unrelenting and Bridges's swaggering lieutenant, Matt O'Leary, bundles Chung into a car for a field trip to a cosy suburban neighbourhood. As he smokes crystal meth in the kitchen, O'Leary hears an excruciating cry and rushes into the bedroom to see a man clutching his bloody groin. Aware that his own neck is on the block if the brothel is ever discovered, O'Leary charges after Chung and reassures the onlookers she has begged to help her that she is a junkie who needs to be taken back to rehab. Dumping Chung in a tub full of ice cubes to teach her a lesson, Bridges urges O'Leary to clean up his act and, in a fit of pique, orders Roytberg to confiscate the kittens and kill them.

A caption informs us that a year has passed and Chung asks Monterroza during a rare recreational period why Russian blonde Naama Kates was allowed to keep her cat. She explains that she once snitched on some rebellious girls and is afforded certain perks as O'Leary's `nightingale'. The 15 year-old Monterozza is surprised that Chung is 19 and warns her that they will dispose of her once she becomes too old for the clientele. So, when she is taken to a soirée for middle-aged businessmen (during which she adopts a faux Chinese accent while servicing her john), Chung snaps off one of her heels and hides it for future use. When she finds that Monterroza has vanished and that Kates is wearing her graduation ring, Chung attacks her in the dead of night and, while he is amused by her spirit and ingenuity, O'Leary makes her swallow the ring as a punishment.

Chung seizes her opportunity and tells O'Leary that the Russian girls despise him and steal money on field trips because they know he has trouble with his three Rs. Furthermore, when she helps him claw back the cash that a bunch of college kids are trying to withhold and then betrays the companions who had run away during the confusion, O'Leary realises how useful Chung could be to him and he rewards her with a snort of cocaine in the front seat of the van on the way back to Dusty Canyons. She passes her ring in the toilet that night and cleans it under the tap before putting it on her finger, as a symbol of her graduation, which is confirmed the following morning when O'Leary gives her a gingham dress to wear and sends the pampered Kates out on a job while Chung cleans his quarters.

As she looks through some photos in his room, she finds one of O'Leary and Mechlowicz together and realises how she had been set up. But things finally seem to be looking up, as she is taught how to take phone bookings (and to recognise when the cops are fishing for information) and is rewarded with Kates's fat ginger tom. Chung also starts escorting girls on field trips and allows herself to be used as a guinea pig when O'Leary picks up a new batch of morphine from crooked chemist Russell Hodgkinson. In her befuddled state, Chung tries to seduce O'Leary on the way home and he is affronted that she would brand him as one of those men who thinks only with his genitalia.

As a military veteran and a family man, Bridges prides himself on being an upstanding member of his community. He also believes he is far too clever to get caught and is put out when federal agent Tony Doupe approaches him at the end of a lecture on drug smuggling to say that a guidance tracker had put him in the vicinity of the spot where rancher Demetrius Sager and deputy Stefan Hajek had been shot. Bridges turns on the charm in claiming he had merely being doing his rounds. But Doupe also places a call to Dusty Canyons and Chung realises that he is a lawman by the fact he asks about prices. She continues to bide her time, however, and accompanies O'Leary as he loads Kates's corpse on to Bridges's fishing boat, so they can push it overboard in the middle of a lake.

However, Bridges cannot resist taunting O'Leary about his Mennonite background, his learning difficulties and his undistinguished time in the US Army. So, O'Leary beats him to death with a club and Chung looks on in horror, as he smokes meth and explains that the order had come from above and that he just does as he is told. Yet, even though she feels a degree of pity for O'Leary, it is clear that Chung is still looking for her chance to escape. But her purpose is blunted when she finds the pregnant Monterroza in a remote house with its own medical facilities run by Eddie Martinez. She tries to laugh with O'Leary when he celebrates a TV news item about Bridges's death, but he realises she has seen something and warns her not to get any funny ideas. He pulls the van over in the middle of nowhere and orders a Russian girl out of the back and tells Chung to shoot her to prove her loyalty.

As she steels herself, O'Leary grabs the gun and hugs Chung, as he says he was only kidding. However, as they set off, he gets a phone call that Roytberg is a stool pigeon and, while O'Leary punishes him in the ice bath, Cardinal urges Chung to help her burn incriminating evidence in the courtyard. The girls are loaded into a large truck and taken to a new location and O'Leary tells Chung to pack a back because they are going to lay low in Dubai before returning to take charge of the operation. While he is out of the room, however, she fills his meth pipe with something from an aerosol can and strokes his hair as he chokes to death. Cutting off her leather ankle tag, Chung steals a couple of vials from the fridge and uses them to stab Martinez in the neck in order to rescue Monterroza. She comforts her by hoping that freedom can go some way to atoning for the loss of her child, but knows how difficult it is going to be to readjust to normal life, as she conquers her shame to call home from a paybox and breaks down on hearing her mother cry with relief.

Notwithstanding its scrupulous avoidance of nudity and sexual and physical violence, this never quite succeeds as either a denunciation of a pernicious trade or as a psychological thriller. Ben Blankenship's production design establishes a forbidding sense of place, which is reinforced by cinematographer Sean Porter's astute shifts between blinding sunlight, the dim artificial lighting of the brothel and the contrasting moods of the punters' abodes. But Griffiths struggles to achieve the necessary air of imperilment, as Chung seems immune to retribution, even though both Bridges and O'Leary are seen to kill on compunction. Moreover, there is also no real sense of how the girls interact, with the sequence of them chatting as though they were having a little R&R seeming to go against the ferocity of the regime's security arrangements. Similarly, the ease with which O'Leary can be duped by punters seems a touch convenient, considering his status within the organisation.

Yet, while the fact that the script is rooted in fact helps Griffiths bypass these and other contrivances, she is left more exposed in her efforts to tease the audience about whether Chung has gone over to the dark side or is merely playing games to alleviate her situation and give her more chance of making a getaway. Part of the problem here is the rather clichéd inscrutability of Chung's performance, which undersells the extent of her drastic transformation. But the fault lies primarily with the failure to flesh out her character beyond the knowledge that she is a bit of a rebel who smokes and goes to bars underage and has her name changed to `Eden' because her trailer park address happens to coincide with the Hebrew word for `delight' and the obvious notion of the corruption of innocence. Thus, while Chung holds the increasingly melodramatic action together well, she never quite seems to be the victim she so obviously is, with the result that this often feels more like a TV-movie than a hard-hitting attack on the evils of vice and the complacency and hypocrisy that allow it to thrive unchecked.