Carrington

Supporting cast is good, too. But the film's plotting is oblique, and its episodic structure doesn't help.

"Carrington" offers yet another demonstration of the remarkable range of Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson. Here, she plays a true historical character, the eccentric Dora Carrington, a plain, tomboyish painter who falls hopelessly in love with writer Lytton Strachey (Jonathan Pryce, who also delivers an excellent performance) around the time of World War I.

As much obsession as romantic love, Dora's feelings for Strachey cause her to, more or less, sublimate herself to him and in some ways live life through him. But Strachey was a homosexual, and though the film suggests they cared deeply for each other, it was an unfulfilled relationship.

The story follows their 17 years together, and Dora, who is 13 years Strachey's junior, is portrayed as a sad, unhappy soul. But Strachey, though amusingly grumpy, genuinely enjoys life, reveling in his own outrageousness, especially in his staid surroundings.

Because Dora is the more repressed character, and because Thompson stresses her drab countenance, with her head frequently lowered, the film's attention repeatedly strays to Strachey. And Pryce plays him to the hilt, in physical ways that range from subtle gestures to flamboyant flights of fancy, and allowing the character to take great delight in his own eccentricities.

The supporting players are also quite good, though the film seems to become more about the lead characters' sexual peccadillos than the deeper aspects of their relationship.

As written and directed by playwright Christopher Hampton (who won an Oscar for his "Dangerous Liaisons" screenplay), "Car-ring-ton" should perhaps be called "Carrington and Strachey," as it profiles these two Bohemians equally (though Strachey gets all the best lines). And the two actors are more than up to the task.

But Hampton's film is something else again. His writing is witty, but it's also as smug as his characters. They always seem to be putting the words they speak on display, rather than simply having converstions. Worse, his plotting is oblique, and the film's episodic structure doesn't help. The narrative seems more or less stitched together in a jumbled fashion, and little by little it begins to unravel.

Still, those performances are something to see, and for some audiences that may be enough. Certainly those looking for a Merchant-Ivory-style film with more bite and R-rated raunchiness may be satisfied.

Aside from my admiration for the actors, however, I was not.

"Carrington" is rated R for sex, nudity and language.