Love interest wanes as Mischa mourns

Mischa, Mischa, Mischa, always Mischa. Isn't it enough that every man and his grandpa loves Miss Barton? Now she has three best friends desperately in love with her in Richard Attenborough's Second World War drama.

One ties the knot with her before zooming off in his B-17 fighter, one swears to marry her should hubby not return, the other is secretly enamoured from the sidelines.

Fifty years on, Ethel Ann (now Shirley MacLaine) attends the funeral of her husband who, we suspect, wasn't the fella she originally married and loved.

Her daughter (Neve Campbell) can't understand why mum seems to be mourning the death of someone other than her dad and begins unearthing the past. Parallel to this yawnsome tale runs the more palatable relief of life in Belfast where a young lad (Martin McCann) helps an older man (Pete Postlethwaite) dig for the remains of a fighter plane.

The juxtaposition of youth's fascination with the past and the older generation's desire to bury it is all that stops this movie dissolving into sentimental dross about love among pensioners.

Closing The Ring
Cert: 12A