Beautifully photographed and designed, Alain Resnais’ adaptation of the Alan Ayckbourn stage play may lack the cinematic ingenuity of his Last Year At Marienbad, but its discussion of memory, time and solitude remains as acute as ever.
Resnais links over 50 short scenes to reveal how isolated people can be - even within supposedly close relationships. The ensemble playing is exemplary, with André Dussollier typically assured as the dapper estate agent whose guilty fascination with the graphic contents of a half-wiped videotape loaned to him by his religious assistant contrasts with younger sister Isabelle Carré’s naive belief in true love.