Let prairie passions lie

Cheerful cockney Lily (Anna Friel) and Sophie (Julie Cox), her wartime mate in the sewing workshop, meet and marry Canadian infantrymen and get one-way tickets to Canada to stay with the in-laws. End of dreamtime, for Lily anyhow. The "ranch" turns out to be a little grey shack in the west of Alberta with a frizzy-haired, frazzled-tempered mother-in-law (Brenda Fricker) and her moody, gammy-legged daughter (Molly Parker), who don't take kindly to the newcomer tarting herself up in red and asking where sinful amusements like the local picture-house are located.

Thank God for the old treadle-driven Singer in the outhouse. It'll make work for idle hands, at least until Lily can lay them tenderly, if chastely, on her sister-in-law's boyfriend (Lauren Dean)

If The War Bride sounds like Mills & Boon on the prairies, it's not far off that well-rutted track of sentimental romances in which moral foundation-garments give protection from any serious loosening of convention. Sophie seems to be having a better time with rich in-laws in Montreal. But just wait for the pay-off. Being poor and honest in homemade frocks turns out to be better than swanking around in a fur cape and a white-walled town car.

Lyndon Chubbuck's film is a UK/Canada co-production. We shall probably see fewer of these being part-filmed over here. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is proposing to raise the bar to 40 per cent of budget for the amount they must spend in the UK to qualify for our over-generous tax breaks. Not before time.

The War Bride
Cert: certPG