There are certain gaps in the storytelling in Separate Lies. It isn't necessarily clear, for example, why Anne married James in the first place, though we see enough to base speculation on (and naturalism is the one genre in which it can make sense to talk about the characters' lives outside what we're told and shown as if they were people). You could also say that James's final transition to acceptance, while not implausible, isn't generated by any action that we see. But these are nothings compared to Fellowes's accomplishment. The material is strictly commonplace--the makings of an episode of a TV detective series--which is always a pitfall for recreations of middle-class life. But Fellowes is so committed to the artistic means of naturalism, and so judicious, that his work is absorbing in a way that movies of broader scope almost never are.

A bit of catnip: Rupert Everett is highly entertaining here despite whatever it is he paid to have done to his face. Click here for before-and-after photos.

You can find this review and a lot besides at The Kitchen Cabinet.

Alan Dale is the author of What We Do Best: American Movie Comedies of the 1990s and Comedy Is a Man in Trouble: Slapstick in American Movies.