Search: Starring Gena Rowlands

This is a film which is both thoughtful and surprising.

Steve Rogers' script is sharp enough and sugar free (that's relative, or course - the ending is candy floss).

The film is soft to the core, deeply sentimental and too politically correct for its own good.

It's largely in Jarmusch's preferred genre of tittering, offbeat comedy, though, and he conjures up some brilliant scenarios and characters.

The cinematography is packaged in a red-ribboned chocolate box, with emphasis on gut-melting sunsets, riverscapes and white birds aflying.

The story is told with compassion, simplicity and (dare I say it?) love.

Seen purely in aesthetic terms, Persepolis is an object of rare beauty, with no obvious precedents or parallels in the history of anime.

The only real mystery, however, is what is this great ensemble cast doing in such a poorly executed movie?

The concept is good, but there are so many holes below the plotline, it sinks.

Succeeds in a way that rips your guts out.