Blueprint

(Herald rating: ***)

The latest film by the director of Gloomy Sunday - which has been playing almost five years in Auckland - is unlikely to achieve the same longevity since it's a little confused and fundamentally rather silly. But it's light years ahead of the Robert De Niro clunker Godsend, which reduced the same idea - that of human cloning - to a cheap frightfest.

Blueprint has loftier ambitions even if it doesn't really come off. Potente (Run, Lola, Run, Bourne Identity) plays both mother and daughter in a drama about a concert pianist, Iris, who is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and hires an ambitious scientist (Thomsen) to clone her so that her talent will not be wasted.

We meet Iris' daughter, Siri, (what else?) in the first reel. She is mooching around the wilds of British Columbia at some time "in the near future" when you do eftpos with your thumbprint and videophones work even in the bush and, oddly, everyone in BC speaks German.

A handsome backwoods pilot (Gudnason) can't understand why she is so retiring, and the explanation unfolds in flashback.

The film, based on a novel by science journalist Charlotte Kerner, is very earnest but can't quite bring itself to grapple with the serious issues it raises. It turns instead into a story about the mother-from-hell and the daughter who refuses to have her life prescribed for her - which doesn't exactly miss the point but certainly doesn't hit it dead centre.

The film's two pianists perform several 90-second works or get a standing ovation for playing the first movement only of a Beethoven sonata, which is quite irritating.

Potente is a charismatic screen presence but there's not really enough for her to work with here.

Cast: Franka Potente, Ulrich Thomsen, Hilmir Snaer Gudnason
Director: Rolf Schubel
Running time: 108 minutes
Rating: PG (adult themes)
Screening: Academy