Writer-director Gerald McMorrow makes a very ambitious debut with a film that is half set in the mysterious, ruined Meanwhile City, and half in modern London.

No connection between the two is apparent, so it's the viewer's job to try to connect them and their main characters; Eva Green's suicidal artist, whose attempts at topping herself appear to be an art project, and Sam Riley's jilted everyman. The big plus is that the fantasy settings look wonderful, on what must be a limited budget (credit due to production designer Laurence Dorman).

The downside is that the plot twists take forever to sort themselves into any coherent form, and you feel sorry for Ryan Philippe, who spends much of the film looking like a cross between the Invisible man and a crash test dummy. Producer Jeremy Thomas has made a point of working with debut directors and there's a suspicion that McMorrow, who made his name with the sci-fi short Thespian X, might come up with something good next time.