Helena in full circle

First we grew used to Helena Bonham Carter swooning in bodice-ripping attire and speaking passionately with a genteel voice in the films A Room With A View and Howard's End.

Then she went gritty, rebellious, and even sci-fi, playing a chain-smoking punk in Fight Club, a wheelchair-bound woman desperate for sex in The Theory Of Flight, and an intellectual chimp who falls for a human in Planet Of The Apes.

But now she seems to have turned full circle, returning to period romance in her latest film Till Human Voices Wake Us - though the English accent gets an Australian twang, and the scene moves from stately homes to the dusty Outback.

Till Human Voices Wake Us stars Bonham Carter as Ruby, a mysterious rail passenger, and Australian Guy Pearce as Dr Sam Frank, who saves her from an apparent suicide bid. As he tries to discover her true identity he reawakens the ghosts of his past. Could she be Silvy, the childhood sweetheart who one day disappeared, robbing him of his love of life?

The film, written and directed by Michael Petroni, is heavily influenced by T S Eliot's poem The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock. It takes its title from the poem, in which a man regrets the risks he never took as life passed him by. Critically acclaimed in Australia, it will be on limited release in London over the next few weeks.

"The script was almost like a poem, with its own eloquent language of metaphors," said Bonham Carter. "I love Ruby - your perception of her is constantly shifting. Is she crazy? A ghost?

A manifestation of Sam's psyche? Or has Silvy survived?"

Bonham Carter's real-life love interest is director Tim Burton, and it was reported at the weekend that she is expecting his baby. A friend said the news came as "a surprise but a very welcome one".

The pair have not moved in together but live next door to each other in Holland Park - having said that they wished to "occupy their own personal aura".