Ladies in Lavender

Herald rating: ****

It is 1936 and Europe is marching closer to war each day, except on the Cornish coast, where the Widdington sisters share a cottage, a garden, afternoon tea, knitting and the wireless in the evenings. Janet (Maggie Smith) is a widow from the Great War; Ursula (Judi Dench) never married.

Everything will change on the morning they find a young man washed up on their stony beach. Andrea Marowski (Daniel Bruhl) is dark, handsome and speaks little English. Janet finds he understands German and uses an old grammar to make a connection. They learn he is Polish and a violinist. They do not learn how he came to be in the sea.

Dr Mead (David Warner) visits the young man and advises bed rest, so Andrea will pass days and weeks with the sisters - particularly Ursula - dispensing sympathy, while their maid (Miriam Margolyes) supplies the tea. Eventually Andrea leaves the cottage, for the movie-honoured tradition of the village dance, and meets Olga Danilof (Natascha McElhone), painter, beautiful and coincidentally a German speaker.

They are soon spending time together, to Ursula's unspoken pain.

Dr Mead, who fancies Olga, suggests the pair might be spies. The local policeman drops in for a chat. But, as this tale gently unfolds, another coincidence and another connection will change the sisters' lives, and Andrea's.

Based on a short story adapted by veteran actor Charles Dance for his debut as a director, it's an unusual love story as Ursula grasps at her last, hopeless chance for romance or attachment. Her sister watches, knowing the pain of having loved and lost.

The roles, the lines were made for these two drama queens. The story, though, is full of unanswered or unresolved questions about Andrea which weaken the whole.

Dance, Dench and Smith address some of those in the DVD's only extra, Ladies in Lavender: A Fairy Tale - particularly that in the original short story, the sisters were in their 40s. Dench and Smith were born within three weeks of each other, in December 1934, and are 71. They're great actors, but that's a stretch.

* DVD, Video rental today