Closing The Ring

Dear, dear Dickie, still making movies at the age of 84. His first film in eight years, this multi-strand drama jumps between World War II and the early 90s, and connected characters in Belfast and the States, where MacLaine is burying her husband and 50-year-old secrets are being unearthed. Ridiculous title notwithstanding, Closing The Ring is a curious beast. The first hour is full of stuffy, stilted scenes, and it takes a while to work out everyone's place as the four separate stories play out with no real structure or rhythm. The younger actors in the wartime scenes are extremely wooden, and it only manages to survive for long stretches on the charms and skills of MacLaine and Plummer (and possibly Barton topless). But it finishes far better than it starts, despite flaws in storytelling and editing, and has enough ambition thematically to paper over these cracks and emerge as decent. [Paul Greenwood]