The Serpent's Kiss

A misbegotten attempt to ring changes on the British costume drama, former cameraman Rousselot's directorial debut tells of a landscape gardener (McGregor) tumbling into a snake's pit of deceit and deadly intrigue when he agrees to create a new estate for wealthy landowner Postlethwaite and his wife Scacchi. The film founders on stilted performances (Grant's death throes are spectacularly risible), conspicuously artificial set design, and dialogue - half 'literary', half colloquially contemporary (including inappropriate modern profanities) - that makes much of supposedly sophisticated metaphor but barely makes sense. And there's another problem: it's all too clearly derivative of The Draughtsman's Contract, comparison with which only makes Tim Rose Price's screenplay seem even worse.