Asylum

David Mackenzie's adaptation of Patrick McGrath's modern-day Gothic melodrama is driven by the same volatile combination of sexual obsession and repressive social mores as Mike Newell's DANCE WITH A STRANGER (1985) and his own YOUNG ADAM (2003). Unfortunately, its mix of baroque plotting, awkward soft-core sex and a simmering violence never gels. 1959, England: Frustrated housewife Stella Raphael (Natasha Richardson) moves with her stuffy prig of a husband, Dr. Max Raphael (Hugh Bonneville), to the grounds of the Gothic asylum where he's just taken a career-advancing position. Stella doesn't love her husband, at least not enough to cut through the fog of depressed d...