Night Train To Lisbon

Swedish director Bille August has made some esteemed films, from Pelle The Conqueror to The Household Of The Spirits, but this Euro-pudding isn’t one of them. August re-teams with Spirits star Jeremy Irons, here a Swiss-lit professor who saves a woman from jumping to her death. It’s the commencement of a plodding tale that sees Irons head to Portugal to uncover details about a past like triangle (Jack Huston, August Diehl and Mélanie Laurent).

Based on the novel by Pascal Mercier, the back-and-into the world narrative saps the report of tension, while Irons bumbles around like a dippy Dumbledore.