Driftwood

While clearly aiming for something as disturbing and profound as Woman in the Dunes, Ronan O'Leary's film comes across as an unintentional parody of Misery. Alone on a windswept island, Anne Brochet gets to roll her eyes as the seemingly normal sculptress who helps amnesiac castaway James Spader. Her kindness is gradually replaced by ritualistic mannerisms and, finally, violent hysteria as her new lover threatens to return to civilisation. With Spader offering no more than typically distracted hesitancy, the burden of dramatic impetus falls on Brochet, who responds with a display of desperate theatricality. Sexist, derivative and unpleasant.