Nightwatching

The formal proscenium staging and classical lighting are all Greenaway's, but the central fulminating performance from Freeman is the real revelation.

Often, Greenaway's handling of actors is his weakest point: but he gets fiercely intelligent performances here from Martin Freeman and Eva Birthistle as the artist and his wife Saskia.

There is a vertiginous sense that Freeman could, after all, have been a contender, if not in the Laughton weight class.

At more than two hours, with almost no depiction of the groundbreaking painter at work and few views of the paintings themselves, there's time to spread a lot of highfalutin manure.