Misconceived mish-mash

Rating: 3/10 (6 January 2004)

Lucas Belvaux's recent superb 'Trilogy' comprised crime thriller, love story and comedy - now Anthony Minghella has disastrously mixed all three into one movie.
Yet things get underway so promisingly, with the painfully reticent beginnings of the relationship between Ada and Inman being intercut with war scenes and the start of Inman's odyssey back home.
But the jarring arrival of Ruby (played by Renee Zellweger in an apparent pastiche of Bubble in the BBC TV sitcom Absolutely Fabulous) throws the movie off balance and it never recovers.
Poor Kidman - another dud role to follow Virginia Woolf in 'The Hours'!