Dreaming of Joseph Lees [1999] [DVD]

This is a story Thomas Hardy might have put his name on, though he would have taken it off had he seen the result. Filmed on the Isle of Man, standing in for 1950s Somerset, this rural melodrama is heavy going, despite some glowingly worthy performances.

Eva (Samantha Morton) falls in love with geologist Joseph Lees (Rupert Graves), her cousin; when he takes off, she marries pig farmer Lee Ross. Then Lees returns, re-igniting passions that burn as fiercely as a barn fire. Eric Styles's direction is overwrought, while Catherine Linstrum's script is declamatory and stagey. That said, Hardy would have loved Morton's seductive sexual innocence.