I Capture The Castle

Teenage girls remember Dodie Smith's novel with tears in their eyes. It was a seminal book in the great growing up assault course. What's nice about it is that the heroine doesn't think she's good looking, clever or sophisticated when, in fact, she's wonderful.

The movie hasn't a hope, really, because those who loved the original will hate the characterisation of the secondary roles. Some of the acting at this level doesn't help and even the castle seems, well, grungy. In real life, they would have dripped with damp and spent every daylight hour foraging for firewood.

The period is between the wars when a certain careless frivolity and naive romanticism gripped the privileged classes. Cassandra's father (Bill Nighy, in his usual role of languid loser) is from a nanny culture where little boys are taught to sit up straight at the table, but not do anything for themselves. Now a writer, with one acclaimed novel behind him, an "artistic" second wife (Tara Fitzgerald) and three children, he lives off charity, hope and other people's money, while suffering a monumental writer's block.

The script relies too heavily on Cassandra's voice-over narrative, as if afraid to lose Dodie's literary ties, allowing the film to become her musings of an emotionally disruptive period when, as a sensitive and observant teenager, she watches her sister Rose (Rose Byrne) make a fool of herself with their new landlord (Henry Thomas), an upright WASPish American who has the sex appeal of lawn clippings.

Cassandra's family rent the almost ruined castle for a pittance and live beneath their means in patchwork poverty. The father's failure and stepmother's disappointment is a backdrop to the real drama, which concerns, naturally, love. Rose is the glamorous one - pity she's stupid - and Cassandra (Romola Garai) is the kind and generous one, who knows her needs are less important. The fact that they both fall for the least attractive man in the history of romantic fiction is possibly to do with not getting out enough - or is it the casting director's fault?

The film suffers from the same affliction as The Heart Of Me. It is fusty without being fashionable and feels so far past its sell-by-date that poor little posh girls who dream of happiness beyond their financial means can't find an audience, even for those who find P G Wodehouse snobbish and despite Garai's charming performance.