This adaptation by Penelope Mortimer of a John Galsworthy story has pretty country landscapes and a pretty heroine (Imogen Stubbs), but not much else. The story of a young, well-to-do barrister (James Wilby, in a part that’s much less sympathetic than it’s supposed to be) becoming involved with a country lass in 1922 is endlessly protracted, and neither Piers Haggard’s direction nor Georges Delerue’s portentous score (incongruously supplemented by a pop tune over the end credits) can do very much with the slender and mainly trite material. With Ken Colley, Sophie Ward, and Susannah York, the last regrettably wasted in an uninteresting part as the heroine’s aunt. (JR)