Basically Catherine sulks and has tantrums until she gets what she wants. That might be fine if the play presented her as a "difficult" ironic protagonist who clearly made bad situations worse. On the contrary, the play regards her as a misunderstood heroine and this just isn't how a heroine behaves, not even a child heroine. Personally, I find the forgiveness of the outraged princess Ginevra in Händel's Ariodante far more moving--she expresses love for her obdurate royal father on her way to prison, before her honor is vindicated. (This might not be what you or I would do, but we're talking about romance heroines who are put forth as embodiments of certain ideals.) Catherine, by contrast, is so offended by Hal's doubt she doesn't even want the stinking proof. In a contemptibly clumsy bit of staging, Hal runs after the car taking Catherine to her new life with Claire in New York and flings the golden notebook through the window so that she'll have to take responsibility--and credit--for her work. (Lucky for her she hadn't developed a "hip" new waffle iron.)

There is some promise early on of more lively entertainment. Jake Gyllenhaal, for instance, shows a more alert vitality than he has before onscreen. In his first scenes he's not just batting his eyelashes at us, but working the dialogue. It actually helps that the movie plays like a stage piece because this imposes some discipline on Gyllenhaal. It requires him to exert more energy to hold his own because he senses, rightly, that he'll be judged by his delivery not by how photogenic he is. But once Hal is put in the position of repeatedly apologizing to the intransigent Catherine, Gyllenhaal can't save himself. Has any actor ever given a good performance when his material turned demeaning?

For her part Hope Davis brings welcome bursts of bright energy to the dismally prejudicial role of the yuppie sister. But all the things that you might well appreciate at a tough time--the distraction of mundane chatter, the material generosity, the refusal to sink into despondency, the effort to connect with the larger community over the family's loss--are used against Claire. The script keeps backing away from melodrama as if to assure us that Claire's not entirely evil, as if that were a realistic possibility, but this doesn't create a complex, or even coherent, character. The fundamental contrast between the sisters is plain enough, however, and has to do with numbers: Catherine uses them for original creative work while Claire turns them to account as a currency trader. Catherine is thus the artist figure and her superiority to materialistic Claire is right at the fatuous heart of the piece. In sum, Davis, too, goes down to defeat, though after an even more resourceful struggle than Gyllenhaal's.

The movie belongs to Paltrow and she wrecks any chance it had of working on screen. First of all, just as a matter of public image, the last thing Paltrow needs is to play a princess (even a dowdy one). John Madden was quoted in the cover story of the October 2005 issue of VLife as saying, "It would embarrass her to hear it, but I think Gwyneth really knows [Catherine] because she has this sense of being slightly special...." (Paltrow named her baby Apple; the question is whether anything is capable of embarrassing her.) In the cover story of the October 2005 issue of Vogue, Paltrow is reported to be visibly unhappy with photographers snapping her picture at the Chanel runway show in Paris and sighs, "This might be my last round of fashion shows. I don't need to put myself through this anymore." As reported in This Is London, she does have fashion advice, however, this pearl, for instance, offered to women visiting England: "The best thing for London, even if you're going in the summer, is to bring a little cashmere sweater or a pashmina because it gets really cold unexpectedly." (Remember, ladies, she said a little one.)