Émile Zola's tale of dark passion and matricide, Thérèse Raquin, ought to lend itself nicely to noirish retellings, not least because it foreshadows the plots of James M Cain's Double Indemnity and, particularly, The Postman Always Rings Twice.
Actor-turned-director Charlie Stratton makes one overriding conceptual decision in his new version, In Secret, which is that Thérèse (Elizabeth Olsen) and her lover Laurent (a heavily sideburned Oscar Isaac) have consigned themselves to a living hell. Having drowned her husband, the sickly Camille (Tom Felton), they only have themselves to blame for spending the whole second half of the film imprisoned in dingy Parisian sets the colour of a murky swamp.
They're also stuck at the mercy of a tonally indecisive film, which keeps changing its mind about major issues of remorse and ongoing motivation.
Olsen, so good in most of her roles to date, counts as a flat disappointment here. Though the film doesn't hold back in suggesting a frenzied sex drive, she fails to make us feel much about this anti-heroine.
Withdrawing into doll-like, staring sociopathy is the easy way out. The incongruous supporting cast - Matt Lucas, Shirley Henderson, Mackenzie Crook - might as well have been airlifted from a feeble period sketch-show on BBC3.
The only scenes that stick in your mind belong hook, line and sinker to Jessica Lange, as Madame Raquin.
Lange achieves more with her darting eyes after stroke-induced paralysis than most of the cast achieve with their entire able bodies.
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