An oppressive air of exacting care hangs over Dan Wilde’s already stifling domestic melodrama. Yet it perfectly suits this country house tale of parents who blithely confuse their own contentment with doing the best for their children.
The flashbacking action revolves around a prodigal son returning for the 21st birthday party being thrown by the mother he has never forgiven for re-marrying, and the childhood sequences, in which widow Jennifer Ehle hastily replaces short-fused Danny Huston with smarmily decent Patrick Baladi, are delicately paced to suggest the chagrined resentment of her spoilt kids. A subplot involving grasping aunt Trudie Styler and her niece, Amelia Warner, adds to the satisfyingly distrustful atmosphere.