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Rachael Blake plays a novelist who's extremely pleased with herself and makes a point of being either sour or enigmatic or both simultaneously. She and her publisher (Vince Colossimo) visit her country mansion so she can write her second novel without distractions. He seems extremely dim - for a publisher. But that's handy because all she seems to want from him is sex, or to be able to humiliate him. Nothing much happens for the first half hour. Except we meet the standard menacing local bloke in a flannelette shirt, and there are flashes of past somethings - very brief, too brief to stimulate much anticipation. Then the novelist's fun-loving besty (Susie Porter) turns up, and larger hints are made about the dark secret of their past, but not much happens that you don't expect will happen. A triangle develops, the dark secret is gradually revealed, but are the "shocking" scenes we see part of the novel being written, or are they really happening? I didn't care. This is one of those 20 minute stories that are chopped up into 90 minute jigsaw puzzles in the hope that you won't notice that not much is going on. As far as interesting characters or story are concerned, "The Second" woefully neglects its audience.

The makers of this plotty, glossy thriller have based their work on an excellent, dark novel by Patricia Highsmith. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't even come close to representing Highsmith's carefully constructed murky little world. The main problem - apart from the over-egged art direction and false, icon-ridden recreation of the mid-1950s - is the characterisations. In Highsmith's original, the main character of Walter (Patrick Wilson, on good form) and his relationship with his neurotic wife, Clara (Jessica Biel, lost) is complex and fascinating. As is the relationship between Walter and his new amour, Ellie (in the book she's a modest, sincere music teacher; in the movie she's a phoney hipster, singer). The movie relationships are diluted to the simplest terms, as though this were a trailer for what they could be. The most sinister character ( well-portrayed by Eddie Marsan), Walter Kimmel, is simply sinister without any exploration of his relationships with anyone else or his view of the world. Most of Highsmith's plot is intact, but rather than moan on about this travesty, I suggest you read the book, "The Blunderer", it's excellent on so many levels.