BLAKE Morrison's coruscating memoir was notable, among other things, for its author's willingness to indulge in public self-flagellation. Blake's father, whose slow death formed the book's core, is revealed to be a liar, a philanderer and an emotional bully.
But, lest we suspect Morrison jnr thinks himself a paragon of decency, the book does not flinch from - indeed, it positively relishes - detailing various manifestations of his own moral weakness.
Much of that petty wretchedness has made it into this solid film adaptation. The scene in which Morrison (Colin Firth) masturbates guiltily while his father wheezes next door gives off the just the right degree of queasy discomfort. The sequence where, despite an apparently stable marriage, he presses himself on an old flame is equally unsettling. If you are seeking vicarious guilt, then look no further.
What has proved more difficult to translate from page to screen is the disconnect between who Arthur Morrison really was and who his son believed him to be. Deprived of the uncertain first-person narrative, the film must rely on Jim Broadbent to carry both the author's impression and the obscure reality.
As his childhood progressed, Blake began to suspect that his father - a bluff fantasist - was having an affair with a family friend (Sarah Lancashire) and that he may even have fathered her daughter. That knowledge, combined with stewing resentment at the older man's frequent insensitivity, helped Blake create a classic Oedipal monster out of Arthur. Yet, as the book proceeded, we came to suspect unfairness in this inadvertent caricature.
Despite a reliably warm performance from Broadbent, the film can never quite communicate that ambiguity. One fine scene, in which the boozers in a pub fall for Arthur's charisma while the young Blake fumes, does help confirm that the rest of the world had a very different vision of the brash charmer. But the film version remains psychologically underpowered when set beside its source material.
Still, Anand Tucker, director of Hilary and Jackie, does have a lovely feel for period detail and - making promiscuous, metaphorical use of mirrors - squeezes agreeable degrees of melancholy from the lengthy flashbacks.
Allowing the images to take on the boldness of three-strip Technicolor, Tucker offers us a film that, though somewhat short on emotional insight, is never anything less than seductive. Worthy, middlebrow British cinema has done many plenty worse things to cinemagoers.
DONALD CLARKE
