There's a distinct literary feel to this week's In Cinemas column, as Terence Davies's A Quiet Passion, Pablo Larrain's Neruda and Raoul Peck's I Am Not Your Negro respectively commemorate the lives and works of Emily Dickinson, Pablo Neruda and James Baldwin. Each film-maker adopts a markedly different approach and, in their way, provide a masterclass in how to translate a writer's vision into indelible images. But they also take liberties with historical fact to suit their own intellectual agenda.

So little is known about the reclusive American poet Emily Dickinson that, prior to her death in 1886 at the age of 55, she was known as `The Myth' within her small, enclosed community in Amherst, Massachusetts. This gives Terence Davies the latitude, therefore, to mine her writings in order to construct his own version of her life story, which retains a kernel of `narrative truth' while being little more than a series of intelligent speculations. There's nothing wrong with such a gambit. Indeed, the Hollywood studios once specialised in concocting melodramatic fantasias around the deeds of the great, the good and the maligned. But the problem with A Quiet Passion is that Davies is nowhere near as sophisticated a writer as Dickinson. Consequently, his aphoristic dialogue owes more to an erudite Sunday serial than period speech and this places undue strain on a cast striving to hit a human note commensurate with the immersing mood generated by the impeccable production design.

The action opens in 1844, as Mary Lyon (Sara Vertongen), the founder of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, divides her students between those who wish to come to God and those who hope to do so. Unable to commit either way, Emily Dickinson (Emma Bell) is left standing in the middle of the room and it comes as some relief when her lawyer father Edward (Keith Carradine) arrives with her siblings, Lavinia (Rose Williams) and Austin (Benjamin Wainright) to take her back to the family home at Amherst. En route, however, they visit Aunt Elizabeth (Annette Badland) in Boston and Emily teases her father about his conviction that soprano Jenny Lind (Marieke Bresseleers) should not make an exhibition of herself upon the stage.

Emily believes that the `Swedish Nightingale' has an inalienable right to share her talent with the world and requests Edward's permission to write poetry between three and six in the morning. She also asks him to use his influence with Samuel Bowles (Trevor Cooper), the editor of the Springfield Daily Republican, and he agrees to publish `Sic Transit Gloria Mundi', even though he disapproves of female authors and considers the remainder of Dickinson's submissions to be overly conventional and mediocre.

He had clearly not read the interminable verses penned by Aunt Elizabeth and Emily does little to hide her disdain when she comes to visit. Reprimanding Edward and his wife Emily (Joanna Bacon) for raising `sophisticated' children, Elizabeth accuses her brother of being an abolitionist and her niece of being a Massachusetts Robespierre during a feisty exchange that ends with Elizabeth sipping on currant wine (for medicinal purposes). Peace reigns once more, however, as the evening draws on. Emily ponders the beginning of `The Heart Asks Pleasure First' as the camera pans around the room to show the family reading, embroidering or gazing into the fire. Mrs Dickinson asks Emily to play an old hymn on the piano and the strains of `Abide With Me' remind her of a young man who sang so beautifully at her church before dying at 19.

Urged by her departing aunt not to fear death, Emily recites to herself part of `Astra Castra' from `Time and Eternity', as the carriage trundles along the woodland road and a series of neat dissolves shift the scene into the 1860s, as Edward, Austin (Duncan Duff), Vinnie (Jennifer Ehle) and Emily (Cynthia Nixon) pose for photographic portraits. Their stiff formalism is ruffled, however, by the introduction of Vinnie's wittily talkative teacher friend, Vryling Buffum (Catherine Bailey), who jokes that her name sounds like an anagram before sympathising with Emily for having had to endure such ghastly alma mater and declaring that she has no fear of death, even though Heaven and Hell sound equally boring.

They walk with parasols, but Vryling has no intention of accompanying the sisters to church to meet the new pastor (Miles Richardson). But Emily gets off to a bad start with him when she refuses to kneel for prayer and defends her right to do as she wishes with her soul. Edward chastises her for such impiety, but she refuses to buckle and smashes a plate on the edge of the table when he complains that it's dirty.

While Emily demonstrates herself to be a free-thinking proto-feminist, Vryling continues to toss off witticisms during a conversation with Austin, in which she opines that men should occupy their time with tobogganing and philately. Edward keeps trying to persuade his daughter to go to church, but she insists that God knows her well enough not to need her presence in a pew to remind Him of her existence. She muses on `I Reckon - When I Count At All' and sews at her desk. But she allows herself to feel excited when Vinnie shows her a picture of their future sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert (Jodhi May).

Emily also agrees to be spontaneously superficial with Vryling and Vinnie at a commencement ball. They gossip about the guests before Emily and Vinnie flutter their fans while Vryling dances a polka with a dashing young soldier (Barney Glover). On returning to the sofa, however, Vryling declares that he danced like a polar bear and she brands him a prig for denouncing Wuthering Heights without having read it. Quipping her way into the garden, Vryling announces that the best way to avoid offending God would be to quit yodelling before departing for a tryst. Emily confides that she would miss Vryling's honesty if she ever moved on and goes indoors to check on her mother, who is reminded of her youth by someone playing `I Dream of Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair' on the piano. Despite being sickly, however, she manages to come downstairs to meet Susan and Emily (who has introduced herself as `Napoleon') reassures her that she would leave a chasm if she ever departed.

Following a garden conversation with Vryling about marriage and leaving the family hearth, Emily experiences a shooting pain in her side and reprimands the servants for dropping the bread she had baked for an agricultural show. Edward admonishes her for treating Thomas (Turlough Convery), Margaret (Verona Verbakel) and Maggie (Yasmin Dewilde) with insufficient respect and she offers them the money she won in the bread competition by way of apology. However, she is scarcely able to hide her disappointment when she learns that she only took second prize.

Now an aunt, Emily cradles young Ned (Daan and Eve Cools) and recites `I Am Nobody, Who Are You?' to the delight of the assembly. But Edward spoils the mood by revealing that Fort Sumter has been fired upon and that Civil War will almost inevitably follow the South's secession from the Union. Austin asks permission to enlist, but his father refuses to consent and an argument about filial duty and gentlemanly honour ends with everyone leaving Edward alone and Emily declaiming `To Fight Aloud Is Very Brave' in voiceover.

An awkward montage of colour-tinted combat photographs and combined casualty figures follows - Gettysburg (51,112), Spotsylvania (31,086) and Antietam (23,134) - before Austin dismisses Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address as `not memorable' and Emily takes him to task for disagreeing that the conflict had been as much about gender as slavery. She also criticises him for implying that women should only be decorous when explaining to Vinnie that he will be away in court for two months. He begs her not to fight on his last night at home and she acknowledges that she will be unhappy while he is away. But she feels closer to Susan, who finds her writing in the middle of the night and confesses to finding the physical aspects of married life to be a duty rather than a pleasure. Emily envies her having a life while she merely has a routine and accuses herself of living a lie in deceiving people into believing that she is content with her lot. Moreover, when Susan commends the rigorousness of her soul, Emily laments that it is no substitute for happiness.

When Vinnie enthuses about the sermons of the Reverend Charles Wadsworth (Eric Loren), Emily suggests inviting him to tea. Vinnie points out that he is married and Emily opines that it's equally upsetting to lose a friend to marriage or death. Upbraiding her for being so dismissive, Vinnie assures her sister that she will meet the man who wins her heart. But Emily insists she is `a kangaroo among the beauties' and will only find love if her suitor is interested in zoology and spirituality.

Initially, Wadsworth proves a disappointment when he appears as abstemious as his excessively demure wife, Jane (Simone Milsdochter), who considers tea to be as sinful as alcohol. She also disapproves of the `Yorkshire gloom' of the Brontës and is piqued by Emily's curt dismissal of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's `The Song of Hiawatha'. But she allows her husband to take a turn of the garden with Emily, who slips a small book of verses into his hand in gratitude for the inspirational beauty of his latest sermon. He sits to read and cannot understand why so few of her poems have been published. She claims it's easy to be stoical in the face of utter rejection and fears that posterity will be as comfortless as God, as a posthumous reputation suggests that someone was unworthy of attention during their lifetime.

She does crave some recognition, however, and responds to Wadsworth's encouragement with `If You Were Coming in the Fall'. But her happiness is curtailed by Vryling's announcement that she is to marry. As they wander in the garden, she urges Emily to remain a rebel, but have the wisdom to embrace the noble American virtue of hypocrisy by keeping her thoughts to herself (as no one likes a radical). Emily protests that she will always kick against the system, even if it distances her from God. But Vryling avers that Emily is closer to His grace than anyone else she knows and implores her to succumb to her vices while staying true to herself (even if it means becoming the thing she most dreads).

No sooner has Vryling departed than Wadsworth leaves for San Francisco and Emily argues with Vinnie about her peculiar attachment to a married man. Having consoled her mother over her regret for having done so little with her short time, Emily has become conscious of her isolation and she curses herself in the mirror for having underachieved. Vinnie tells her not to melodramatise and Emily (exhibiting little of her supposedly sweet nature) snaps back by accusing her sister of being smug. But they cling to each other during `We Outgrow Love Like Other Things' before `The Dying Need But Little, Dear' follows Vryling and her groom out of the church, as Emily refuses to wave them off.

Emily also proves unable to stand beside her father's coffin, as she gives way to sobbing while the rest of her family grieve less demonstrably. Moreover, on the rainy day of the funeral, she remains indoors and comforts herself with `Of So Divine a Loss' as she watches the cortège depart from beneath her window. But, after three days of incarceration, she leaves her room and opts to express her mourning by wearing white. She also takes Bowles to task when he visits for having the temerity to interfere with her punctuation. But he admires her spirit as they banter on the staircase and laughs when she mocks the idea of finding a husband with the spirit of George Washington when she wants someone as spectacular as Disraeli and as upright as Gladstone.

The stairs are also the scene of a conversation with Henry Emmons (Stefan Menaul), a young admirer of Emily's writing. But she refuses to come out of her room and turns down his invitation to go for a drive before her door closes over a recitation about a groom finding his bride that sounds like it has been taken from Dickinson's writing, but seems to be mere pastiche. However, it opens again (to the accompaniment of the Thomas Ford madrigal `Since I First Saw Your Face') to show Emily sitting bolt upright in the lamplight and staring unflinchingly into the lens. Her eyes close, however, and she imagines Emmons returning to march up the stairs in silent shadow. But her reverie is brief and the camera retreats and the door closes on her fading hopes of romance.

Dismissing Emmons a second time earns Emily a reprimand from Vinnie. But she remains unrepentant and consoles herself with the knowledge that God will be merciful to her and that she will be free if He doesn't exist. However, while her mind remains alert, her body begins to fail her and she starts suffering from epileptic fits. The lines of `We Never Know We Go - When We Are Going' run through her head as she recovers her composure on the bed. The doctor (Richard Wells) diagnosis Bright's Disease and regrets there is no known cure. She defiantly states `This World Is Not Conclusion' as Vinnie shows him out, but finds distraction in nursing her mother after she suffers a stroke. But she also takes exception to Austin consorting with Mabel Todd (Noemie Schellens), a married woman whom Emily overhears singing Schubert in the drawing-room and witnesses kissing her brother in the room abutting her own.

Vinnie tries to mediate between Emily and Austin, as they trade wounding insults. He storms out and Emily wonders how Vinnie can still love her when she had become so bitter. They laugh when Vinnie admits she wishes Mabel would go up in an exploding balloon. But Austin uses his next visit to read aloud an article by Bowles claiming that women writers are invariably lonely souls with nothing worthwhile to say. Susan chastises her husband for his cruelty (in a manner that implies she knows about his affair), but he refuses to pander to Emily's wounded sensitivity and Vinnie also cautions her against allowing her integrity to justify intolerance. She reminds Emily that, in setting such high standards, she needs to remember the human weaknesses to which even she is susceptible and the sisters embrace with a mixture of resignation and anxiety.

Fitting again to `Our Journey Had Advanced', Emily takes to her bed. The family keeps vigil until she dies and Vinnie lays flowers in her coffin to `My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close'. Over `Because I Could Not Stop for Death', a top shot looks down on the hearse and cemetery procession before a portrait morphs from Cynthia Nixon to Emma Bell and Emily Dickinson herself to `This Is My Letter to the World', as the credits roll to the sound of Charles Ives's `The Unanswered Question'.

Of the many questions arising from this sincere, if sometimes stilted speculation on the journey of a soul, the most pressing surely relates to why Davies felt the need to sneak Eric Idle and John Du Prez's Spamalot song, `I'm All Alone', on to the soundtrack. Perhaps it was to distract viewers from awful lines like Vryling's wisecrack, `To be shocked by a book you haven't read is like going to Sodom and Gomorrah and being offended that neither is from Philadelphia.' There are several similar moments, when it feels as though Davies is trying to rewrite Gone With the Wind in the style of Jane Austen. But, even though he is clearly not attempting to fashion a social comedy of manners, the more epigrammatical passages consistently compare unfavourably with Whit Stillman's Love & Friendship.

The Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands has been recalled in such features as Ralph Thomas's Appointment With Venus (1951), as well as TV mini-series like the James Andrew Hall-scripted Enemy at the Door (1978-80) and Stephen Mallatratt's Island at War (2004). The BBC also commissioned the documentary triptych, Channel Islands at War (2010), which was presented by Bergerac actor John Nettles. Now, director Christopher Menaul has teamed with screenwriter Jenny Lecoat for Another Mother's Son, which tells the true story of Lecoat's great aunt, Louisa Gould, who perished in a gas chamber at Ravensbrück after sheltering a Russian slave labourer in her home in the Jersey parish of St Ouen.

The Channel Islands were the only part of the British Isles to fall under Nazi rule during the Second World War. In the summer of 1942, Adolf Hitler ordered that any English residents not born on the islands should be deported to Germany and he replaced them with shock workers from across Europe. However, Louisa Gould (Jenny Seagrove) and her sister Ivy (Amanda Abbington) plead the cause of a neighbour with Jersey postmaster Brian De La Haye (Nicholas Farrell). He protests that his hands are tied, but Louisa reminds him of the groceries she gave him under the counter at her shop and he promises to do what he can. She celebrates with brothers Arthur (John Hannah) and Harold Le Druillenec (Ronan Keating), only to have to cycle to the nearby quarry, where teenage nephew Rex (Brenock O'Connor) is watching German soldiers mistreating the Russian labourers carrying boulders.

The next day, Louisa, Ivy and shop assistant Nicole (Félicité Du Jeu) go for a walk on the beach and are dismayed to see Jess (Sophie Skelton) kissing with an enemy soldier. However, worse news follows when the widowed Louisa receives a telegram informing her that her son has been killed overseas. The villagers gather for the funeral service in the parish church, but she opens the shop as usual that evening to serve regulars like Elena (Susan Hampshire), Lily (Gwen Taylor), Maude (Joanna David) and René (Peter Wight). But, when a work gang is frog-marched past the store, Louisa and Ivy rush out to give the passing Russians food, even though they are threatened by the Nazi guards.

Among them is Feodor Burrij (Julian Kostov), who hides behind a rock at the quarry the following day and makes his way to René's farm, where a compatriot is already hiding. Despite being initially reluctant, Louisa agrees to shelter Burrij and dubs him `Bill', as she can't pronounce his Russian name. As she runs a bath and finds Bill clean clothes, Arthur intercepts a letter giving the island commandant information about suspicious activity, but Brian insists it's delivered or they will get into trouble. At that moment, Louisa receives a knock on the door and is relieved it's only a blackout patrol warning her about a light shining from an upstairs window.

While she works in the shop, Bill fixes a leaking tap and Louisa convinces Arthur and Rex that she is happy to take a risk to protect her guest, as he is a captured pilot who has endured fearsome beatings from the Nazis and she feels highly maternal towards him after the death of her son (Edward, who studied with his younger brother Ralph at Exeter College). She teaches him English and he picks up the language with freakish ease. He also catches the eye of shop assistant Annie (Izzy Meikle-Small) and persuades Louisa to let him sketch her, as he was an art student before the war. However, when she suggests his talent is God given, he loses his temper, as he cannot believe in any deity that would allow such a brutal war to claim so many innocent lives. He throws the drawing on the fire and Louisa send him to his room like a naughty schoolboy.

Louisa goes to the church to pray and returns to find that Bill has repaired her broken glasses. However, he has also disappeared and she only finds when she goes to collect eggs from the henhouse the next morning. Convinced he needs some air after three months being cooped up, Louisa takes Bill for a cycle ride along the coast road and they are lucky when a backfiring car causes such a commotion that they are able to speed away from a roadblock. The incident convinces her to get some false papers made and Arthur (who is the local teacher) promises the forger to give his daughter good grades in return for keeping quiet.

Similarly, when she catches Bill kissing Annie in her kitchen, she decides to take him to St Helier for a change of scene. He is nervous at seeing so many Wehrmacht uniforms and they go into a bookshop to let him calm down. They buy a book on Kandinsky, but Bill fumbles his money and rushes into the street and they are followed by a German officer. He catches up with them after they bump into Brian in a backstreet (and he thinks they are an item). But Bill has merely left his wallet behind and the German returns it to him with a smile.

Back in St Ouen, Bill loses his temper when he learns that Annie has moved out and only speaks to Louisa again when a Red Cross letter arrives from her other son. He rushes to the beach where she is gathering brushwood and hugs her when she reads the good news Ralph is safe. But Bill is dismayed when a Russian work gang passes them and he recognises some of the faces and hopes that no one betrays him.

As Christmas approaches, Arthur becomes concerned that Louisa is taking too many risks by letting Bill serve in the shop and strike up a friendship with Mattie (Andy Gathergood|) the delivery boy. She insists that everyone in the neighbourhood is like family, but he knows that quislings are willing to snitch for the reward money and warns her to be more discreet. However, they nearly land in hot water when Bill sings a patriotic song during a family get together on Christmas Eve and only Harold's ability to sing some Russian lyrics persuades a snooping German patrol that they are not harbouring a fugitive.

Ignoring Arthur's warning, Louisa and Bill go to church the next day and she slaps Jess when she eavesdrops on Elena urging Louisa to consider moving Bill on before they are rumbled. Sisters Lily and Maude also have a grudge against Louisa after she refuses to give them extra firewood and bread and snaps at them when they suggests she gets black market supplies from Mattie. So, Arthur is not surprised when another letter is sent to the commandant. However, Brian sends it out for delivery when Arthur is distracted by a German officer needing a staff register and he rushes to his sister's house to remove all traces of Bill having stayed there.

Nicole helps them burn papers and anything relating to their work with the resistance. They also get rid of a radio set and Mattie makes arrangements to find Bill a safe house. But they fail to spot the Russian-English dictionary that Harold had loaned Bill and the German officer (Christian Hillborg) smiles sardonically as he places Louisa under arrest. Lily and Maude watch her being led to a waiting van in handcuffs and she is joined in the cells by Elena and Nicole, while Harold is taken away alone. They hear RAF planes passing overhead and are convinced an invasion is imminent. Thus, when she is interrogated by a senior officer (Robert Besta), Louisa makes a joke about him packing to leave. But he has no sense of humour and asks if Gould is a Jewish name. She tells him to mind his business, but the court sentences her to two years (when Harold and Nicole get five and four months respectively) and extradites her to Germany.

It's August 1944 and Harold sees Louisa when her train stops in Northern France on its journey east. She promises to get him lemon dib-dabs for his next birthday and he weeps as the train pulls away. On 9 May 1945, the bells ring in the parish church and the army sweep the beach for mines. Elena refuses to serve Lily and Maude in the shop, but Ivy, Arthur and Rex are overjoyed when Harold is found alive in Bergen-Belsen. Nicole also makes it home, as Bill is shipped to the Soviet Union. But there is no sign of Louisa until her glasses are found among the left belongings at Ravensbrück.

A closing caption reveals that she perished on 13 February, just two months before the camp was liberated. Ivy became the first woman to be elected to the States of Jersey, while she was among the first to receive Her Majesty's British Hero of the Holocaust Award `for selfless actions which preserved life in the face of persecution'. Louisa and Harold were also commended, with the latter being Britain's only Belsen survivor and his testimony to the Lüneburg trials led to the conviction and execution of many Nazi war criminals. He lived until 1985, while Bill survived into his seventies after being persecuted along with most other repatriated POWs. In 1995, Bill met Ralph Gould during a ceremony to unveil a plaque to Louisa.

Produced by Bill Kenwright, this is a sincere and capably made tribute to the courage of the Channel Islanders who defied the might of the Third Reich between 30 June 1940 and 9 May 1945. The production values are suitably low key, with Adrian Smith's design and Charlotte Mitchell's costumes being as functional as Sam Care's cinematography. Mario Grigorov's score might have been a touch more restrained, but, as is the case with veteran Christopher Menaul's direction, it's rarely overbearing or excessively emotionally manipulative. The same can't always be said of Jenny Lecoat's first screenplay, however, which frequently betrays her background in TV soaps.

Nevertheless, this is clearly a subject close to her heart and she has produced a worthy memorial to her great aunt, who is played with typical finesse by Jenny Seagrove. The supporting cast is full of familiar faces, although John Hannah and Amanda Abbington don't have a lot to do and Julian Kostov makes a better impression than Boyzone singer Ronan Keating in his first major acting role. But it's always a pleasure to see Susan Hampshire, Gwen Taylor and Joanna David, whose spinster sisters are made to seem Louisa's likeliest betrayers, although the identity of the traitor has never been uncovered.

British realism is so citycentric that we should be grateful when a film tackling on rural issues reaches the schedule. But, while it contains echoes of such fine outings as Andrew Kötting's This Filthy Earth (2001) and Ben Hopkins's Better Things (2008), Hope Dickson Leach's first feature, The Levelling, feels more like a compendium of Archers scenarios than an authentic snapshot of country life. It doesn't help that there has been a clutch of bovine movies in recent times, including Imam Hasanov's Holy Cow (2015) and such documentaries as Peter Gerderhag's Women With Cows (2011) and Andy Heathcote and Heike Bachelier's The Moo Man (2013). But what makes this tale of parental tension, grief and domestic dysfunction all the more disappointing is that Dickson Leach had explored these theme so much more effectively in wonderful shorts like Cavities (2004), The Dawn Chorus (2006) and Morning Echo (2009) before she took some time away from film-making to have a family.

At the end of a wild party on father David Troughton's farm on the Somerset Levels, Joe Blakemore dies of gunshot wounds and vet sister Ellie Kendrick returns home for the first time in several years for the funeral. Troughton has been forced to live in a caravan since his land flooded and the insurance company refused to pay out. So, he is pleased to see Kendrick, who is driven to the morgue see her brother's body by old friend, Jack Holden. She throws up en route on learning that Blakemore blew his face off in the downstairs toilet and returns to lecture Troughton for locking Milo the dog in an outhouse. Unconcerned, Troughton enlists Kendrick's help in milking the cows and she sullenly follows his instructions before crashing in her old room (which hasn't changed since she last slept in it) rather than sharing the caravan.

The following morning, Kendrick scoots Milo out of the loo (with its blood-spattered wall) before joining Troughton in the yard. He is expecting a buyer for half of his herd and is surprised to learn that Blakemore cancelled the appointment without telling him. While he shows some local labourers a plot that needs digging, Kendrick deals with the policeman who returns Blakemore's rifle and lets slip that the coroner's verdict is likely to be suicide. As Troughton had insisted that his son had died in a tragic accident, Kendrick is furious with him for refusing to face up to the truth. She is even more angry when she finds badgers buried in a ditch. But Troughton blames Blakemore for shooting them and not burning them, as they could get into trouble for killing the animals with the threat of Bovine TB hanging over the area.

Needing to find some documents pertaining to the sale of his cows, Troughton goes into the loft. He admits that he left the army with some reluctance to take over his father's farm and suggests that Kendrick would have made a better heir than her brother. But she accuses him of driving her away when she was 18, after sending her to boarding school. She also curses him for refusing to let her come home for her mother's funeral, but Troughton says he was trying to protect her and teach her the valuable lesson that life goes on and that nothing can be gained from over-thinking things. Although still annoyed with him, Kendrick extends a hand to pull her father out of his chair and, as stubborn as each other, they go downstairs.

Having cleaned the crime scene, Kendrick mucks in with the milking before taking a walk. She returns to find kindly neighbour Angela Curran dropping off some food and Troughton and Holden tease Kendrick about being vegetarian as they tuck into some shepherd's pie. But Holden loses patience with her when she quizzes him about the party while they are digging the ditch. He asks why she stayed away after the floods and reveals that the fields have been ruined by the waters and the detritus they deposited. When she protests that Blakemore had reassured her that he could manage, Holden accuses her of always wanting the farm for herself and hopes that she is pleased with the way things have turned out.

Kendrick and Troughton meet with vicar Clare Burt to plan the funeral. But Kendrick gets flustered when Burt suggests that she feels guilty about her brother's suicide and she snaps that she has no regrets as she was nowhere near the farm when Blakemore shot himself. But her emotions come pouring out when Milo falls into a swampy pool while chasing a stick and Kendrick has to jump into the filthy water to rescue him.

Refusing to let herself brood, Kendrick makes a start on cleaning the flood damage to the farmhouse. She is surprised to find petrol cans in the kitchen, but Troughton is in no mood to discuss anything, as he guzzles scotch instead of lunch. When she asks about what he will do after the funeral, he tuts that he will make the best of things and doesn't expect her to stay, as she has always put her own ambitions first. Before she can argue, Holden rushes in to say one of the cows is in labour. But she has a male calf and Kendrick is dismayed when Troughton orders her to cull it because it has no monetary value. She struggles in slow-motion to make the animal lie down and staggers into the courtyard after a loud off-screen bang. Aware she has killed a male child with the gun used by her brother, she places the cadaver in a wheelbarrow and uses petrol to incinerate it.

That night, she invites Holden over and walks him into the house carrying a lighted torch. He begs her not to go into the kitchen and comes clean about Blakemore's plan to start a fire and claim on the insurance money. They had argued and Holden had found the body after seeing Blakemore having a heated discussion with Troughton. Urging Holden not to blame himself, Kendrick confronts her father about what was said before Blakemore died. But he orders her out of the room when she accuses him of burying his wife and son without a second thought and they are still barely on speaking terms the next morning when a truck comes to collect the cattle. Kendrick is confused, but Troughton reveals that Blakemore had discovered the herd was infected and had shot himself on realising that they were ruined.

On the morning of the funeral, Kendrick comes downstairs to find Troughton asking why she stayed away when they needed her. She bursts into tears in regret at keeping her distance, but is confused when Troughton implies that he stopped Blakemore calling her for advice on the night of the party, as he wanted him to be a man and stand on his own two feet. They are interrupted by Curran knocking to show them the flowers for the church and Troughton exploits the distraction to grab the rifle from the farmhouse and start shooting the remaining cattle in the field. As the rain begins to pour, Kendrick edges towards Troughton in her funeral dress and pleads with him to stop, as she is going to come home and they can save the farm together. He clings to her and they collapse together into the mud.

Elemental imagery abounds in this considered, if rarely involving drama. After spending so long trying to keep their heads above water, it's bitingly ironic that Troughton and Blakemore should see their livelihood swept away by floods and that the latter's death should finally unleash the tears of reconciliation between Kendrick and her father. Fire also plays a key role in proceedings, as Blakemore had been walking on hot coals at the party before he hit upon the misguided idea of burning down the farmhouse. But Kendrick returns to light a way through the gloom that has driven Troughton to drink and one is left to suspect that their shared gift for competency and hard work will enable them to turn a corner.

Troughton (who, of course, plays Tony Archer in the long-running Radio Four soap) seems more at home on the farm than Kendrick, who will be best known to many for her work in Game of Thrones. But each deserves praise for eschewing easy empathy, while the fact that neither is entirely blameless for either their estrangement or the problems facing Blakemore and the farm shows a good deal of dramatic maturity on Dickson Leach's part. Her decision to leave certain aspects of the family history shrouded is also well judged, as are the stylised interludes of a hare and some cattle swimming and wading through the waters that submerged the Levels in 2013-14. But details like Kendrick being a vegetarian who calls her father by his first name and Troughton using chauvinist language when he is fully aware of his wife and daughter's farming talents feel as forced as the inclusion of quite so many agricultural hot topics. Hutch Demouilpied's unsettling score also seems somewhat unsuited. But Nanu Segal's photography, Sarah Finley's production design and Ben Baird's soundscapes reinforce the exceptional sense of place that makes living off the land as arduous and precarious as it is rewarding.

Having teamed with Hugh Laurie in a delightful series of Jeeves and Wooster scrapes, Stephen Fry knows all about the neverland that PG Wodehouse created around the stately homes of England. But, while he deftly updated the format in his bestselling 1994 debut novel, The Hippopotamus, screenwriters Tom Hodgson and Blanche McIntyre get themselves and sophomore director John Jencks into a frightful muddle in trying to rework its epistolary eloquence for the big screen. They might trim the odd secondary character and use texts and Skype to pay lip service to the text's emphasis on languid, but lacerating letters, but Hodgson and McIntyre solve none of the problems posed by the screed of narrative contrivances that accrue during a half-hearted pastiche of the drawing-room whodunit that relies more on bawdy humour and bodily functions than anything Plum or Agatha Christie might have concocted.

Having realised that TS Eliot had it right when he suggested that literature was like turning blood into ink, failed poet Roger Allam resigns himself to the fact that he is better suited to transforming whisky into journalism. However, having resorted to fisticuffs after being confronted by the star of an inept homoerotic production of Titus Andronicus, Allam loses his job as a theatre critic after informing editor Russell Tovey that he doesn't deserve to have someone of his calibre writing about `loose stooled effluent'. Back in his flat, Allam curses the fact that musicians and artists can hide behind props while writers are exposed to the whims of words. But he finds solace at the bottom of a glass in Soho's Harpo Club, where he bumps into goddaughter Emily Berrington, whose mother is Allam's old flame, Geraldine Somerville.

Somewhat intriguingly, Berrington invites Allam to her apartment, where she informs him that she has been diagnosed with incurable leukaemia. Since visiting 16 year-old cousin Tommy Knight, however, she feels she has much longer to live than the three months allotted to her by the doctors and she offers Allam £25,000 to travel to Norfolk to see whether Knight really does have the power to cure the sick. Taken aback by the commission, but needing the money, Allam agrees to see what his godson is up to and sets off for Swafford Hall to renew his estranged acquaintance with Knight's parents, Matthew Modine and Fiona Shaw.

Met at the station by Knight's older brother, Dean Ridge, Allam spends the jalopy ride home composing rude limericks. He is met with gushing enthusiasm by Knight, who sends Allam monthly letters full of news and verse. However, he is just as devoted to Modine, an American who earned a peerage for doing dark deeds for Margaret Thatcher before marrying into the elite. Modine mistrusts Allam because he once hurt Somerville. But Shaw is glad to see him, as she is concerned that Knight is unusually socially gauche for sixteen.

Settling into his room, Allam manages to pull down the curtain rail. But this enables him to see Knight striding around the grounds at 5am and Allam feels duty bound to follow him. He drops a whisky bottle into a bucket after tripping over it in a field and returns to his room in a huff to text Berrington that the game is afoot. However, his pitch is queered by the arrival of three strangers, who are identified for him by butler John Standing as theatre director Tim McInnerny, who has come to Swafford in the hope that Knight can cure his angina, and French socialite Lyne Renee, who has come to buy a horse named Lilac for her maladroit daughter, Emma Curtis. While the newcomers unpack, Allam goes rowing on the lake with Knight, who regales him with a poem he has written about masturbation. Suitably repulsed, Allam urges Knight to avoid overrated hacks like William Wordsworth and Gerard Manley Hopkins. But he feels the need to inform Shaw of her son's choice of subject matter while drying out after falling in the water. However, Shaw is called to the stables by Ridge, who is concerned that Lilac has suddenly been stricken down. The vet declares that the animal should be put down, but Knight is convinced he can ease its suffering and Shaw agrees to a stay of execution.

During supper, the flamboyant McInnerny relates a risqué anecdote as a preamble to coaxing Modine into backing his next play. But he is squarely rebuffed and tries to save face by proposing a toast to Lilac and miracles. Renee asks why everyone talks incessantly about sex and Allam wonders again what he has let himself into. But he finally gains some insight when Modine explains that his father had acquired a reputation as a faith healer back in Massachusetts after aiding a wounded boy during the war. He thinks the gift has skipped a generation and describes how Knight not only cured Berrington, but also revived Shaw after a potentially fatal asthma attack. But he is not sure whether to protect Knight or share his talents and asks Allam to earn the title of godfather by assessing whether he could cope with the pressures of adulation.

The following morning, news comes that Lilac has made a full recovery and McInnerny is so excited that he wades into the swimming pool to entreat Knight to mend his broken heart. However, Knight makes himself scarce and Modine dispatches Allam to find him. He goes for a buggy ride around the estate with Ridge, who admits to not knowing whether his brother has special powers, even though he witnessed Shaw's seemingly miraculous recovery. The sceptical Allam feels sorry for Ridge and notes Standing's verdict that Knight is an oddball who is always hiding and wandering the grounds in the small hours.

However, Allam also feels sympathy for Curtis after Renee asks Knight to make her as beautiful as her mother, although he quickly comes to question her virginal purity when he catches her fellating Knight in the gardens and is forced to rush the youth to the local GP after Curtis accidentally bites him with her buck teeth. Convinced that Allam is confessing to paedophilia, doctor Emma West threatens to take immediate action and the apoplectic writer storms out of the surgery to interrogate Knight on the drive home. He claims that he is able to heal with his hands, blood and seed because he has a pure soul and regrets that Ridge lacks the spiritual intensity to claim his birthright. But, while he is willing to accept his godson's conviction in his abilities, Allam is appalled to discover that he ministered to Berrington by sleeping with her.

Back at Swafford, Allam gets a frosty reception from Somerville, who pours gin over his head while recalling how he had once humiliated her on her own arts show, Stanza. She is livid with him for taking advantage of Berrington's vulnerability and he video calls her to decline the money. However, Berrington is more concerned about her godfather's welfare and implores him to ask Knight to cure him of his own ailment. Scoffing that he is not about to kick the bucket, Allam is suddenly struck by a thought and rings off to consult the vet about Lilac's condition.

That night, Allam asks Shaw about her asthma attack and he dines with a look of quiet satisfaction on his face. As Modine, Somerville and McInnerny debate how best to promote Knight, Allam declares that he has no special powers, but has come to believe he is some sort of superhero after saving his mother. But, in fact, it was Ridge administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation that had revived her and Knight had only laid hands on her as it began to take effect. Nevertheless, Knight had got it into his head that he could heal as long as his semen remained unblemished and he had employed his unique bedside manner on Berrington, McInnerny and Lilac.

Amidst gasps, Allam reveals that Lilac had merely been drunk because she had lapped up the whisky he had dumped in her water bucket and she had bled from her mouth and anus because she had swallowed slivers of broken glass. As for Berrington, her treatment had coincided with a natural remission. But he has no such good news for McInnerny, whose nocturnal agonies will continue unabated.

Unfortunately, Knight has been eavesdropping at the door and he disappears into the grounds. But he is found in a shallow grave with his dog, Soda, and is rushed to hospital after Ridge performs CPR. With Modine following behind bemoaning the fact he has been a terrible father, Allam is left alone to take the phone call that Berrington has died. He is forced to break the news to Somerville, who accuses him of always needing to be the smartest person in the room. Allam is in no better odour at Berrington's funeral when he opines that she will follow the millions of famous and anonymous people who have passed before her into a vast nothingness. But the solemnity of the occasion reawakens his muse and he rushes home to write seven poems in a single day. He continues to drink, however, and drinks a toast to miracles before telling the audience to eff off because he has work to do.

This gratuitous ending rather sums up a picture that consistently tries to shock without ever remotely succeeding. With just John Paul Davidson's Seve the Movie (2014) to his credit, Hodgson lacks the experience to guide the debuting McIntyre (who is primarily a theatre director) through the tricky task of adapting an intricate text by one of this country's liveliest minds. Consequently, while Allam is able to sparkle while rattling off the Fry bon mots that made the final draft, the rest of the cast has to subsist on platitudes and crass witticism that barely raise a smile. Modine, Shaw and Somerville are particularly short-changed, while McInnerny tries too hard to make the most of a resistible caricature. Most ruinously, however, Knight lacks the charisma to suggest a Rasputin-like aura that is rooted in the misguided innocence of a neglected runt seeking attention and approval.

As he often is, Allam is splendid as the world-weary cynic, whose feud with the musclebound Shakespearean thesps he keeps prompting from the auditorium writes comic cheques the rest of the scenario can't cash. Indeed, the showdown with a wasted Russell Tovey immediately tips proceedings into the red and there they remain until the last of the tragicomic contrivances is played out. It seems a shame that Fry has to descend into the smutty realms of pederasty and bestiality. But so much of the book is missing that he has to be exonerated and the same goes for the maliciously mellifluent Allam, cinematographer Angus Hudson and production designer Stéphane Collonge, who makes the most of the imposing West Wycombe Park setting. Yet there's no escaping the fact that this is essentially Peter's Friends Go Mad At Brideshead.