Rowan loses plot on way to Ealing

Contemporary attempts to ape the Ealing comedy style invariably founder. We just don't have the knack any more.

Niall Johnson's film is a case in point. In it, an elderly housekeeper (the estimable Maggie Smith) arrives at the house of a well-meaning but ineffably dull country vicar (Rowan Atkinson) and proceeds to but the way it is worked out would drive the makers of those classic comedies into spasms of despair.

Kristin Scott Thomas plays the vicar's thoroughly frustrated wife. Patrick Swayze is the local golfing coach who fancies he can help her out sexually, and Tamsin Egerton and Toby Parkes play her adolescent children.

It's a good enough cast but no one finds the right tone for the piece, the screenplay is often embarrassing and Swayze, in particular, seems like a fish out of water as the hopelessly lecherous golfer.

There is the odd amusing moment as Atkinson, trying to play reasonably straight, seeks out a formula on the internet for a less than boring sermon and then finds sexual inspiration from the Bible.

But, on the whole, it's neither funny enough nor romantic enough to satisfy.

Keeping Mum
Cert: 15