Twin Sisters

Herald rating: * * *

A heartfelt, if longwinded, saga of two lives distorted by the turmoils of history in Europe, this will appeal to the punters who made Gloomy Sunday such a hit, even though it has little of that film's narrative delicacy.

Set between the 1920s and the end of World War II, it's the story of twin German girls who are separated at age 6 when they go to live with different distant relatives after the death of their parents. Anna (Uhl as a young woman, Okras in old age) is installed with a brutal farming family, while Lotte (Reuten/Vogel) ends up with a privileged middle-class family in the Netherlands.

The ramifications of these differences in upbringing make for an often moving film which explores the dislocations - of class, nationality, political allegiance, even language - that upended ordinary lives. There are times when the film, based on a bestselling novel by Tessa de Loo, distils the major themes into moments of considerable emotional force: a scene depicting the discovery of letters written but unsent, for example, or the receipt of news of a long-suspected death at Auschwitz have a gut-wrenching authenticity about them. And in revisiting the women in old age as they try to make their peace, the film acknowledges that the stain of World War II creeps even into the present day.

The production design is splendid, too, giving an eerily real sense of time and place.

But for all that the film is rather plodding and well-meaning and seems more intent on historical accuracy than dramatic power.

It wastes, for example, the electric moment of the girls' late-life meeting by dropping it into the first few minutes.

It might have been better suited to Sunday night on the telly - certainly it has not been widely seen in cinemas in the Northern Hemisphere - but it is a competent and touching wartime drama.

CAST: Thekla Reuten, Ellen Vogel, Nadja Uhl, Gudrun Okras
DIRECTOR: Ben Sombogaart
RUNNING TIME: 135 mins
RATING: M
SCREENING: Bridgeway