WHEN a couple of people invest years of their lives and all they have in the dream of making a film, one finds oneself hoping like hell the resulting movie will be a goer.

John Day and Trishia Downie not only sold up their Auckland production company, Matte Box Films, but actually bought an empty 16-room Vic torian mansion down in Tapanui to act as the main location. The whole thing has obviously been a labour of love - which is significant since this is a love story - and much of this care and concern comes across in The Returning.

Unfortunately, love alone does not a good film make. What is missing is a good screenplay - and a director willing to sacrifice some picturesque shots to the integrity of the storyline.

I found The Returning slow-moving to the point of tedium, the characters unconvincing and some times heavily overstated, the plot confused, with insufficient development of the major dramatic moments. The photography, by Kevin Hayward, is lush and the scenery gorgeous, but too often the images seemed gratuitous, sometimes cliched. It looks good, but as a whole the film hangs together uncomfortably.

The story concerns a young lawyer, Alan Steadman (Phil Gordon), who quits the family law firm after the death of his

grandfather and a dispute over control of a multimillion-dollar trust fund. He escapes to the country, where he buys an old deserted mansion.

But weird things are in store. During his first night in residence, Alan is visited by a beautiful spirit who makes fiery love to him in his sleep. He discovers the history of the house and its occupants and links his fate to that of the long-dead woman, with whom hebecomes obsessed.

Finally he submits to what he sees as his destiny and joins his dream lover on her terms.

There’s other business with fellow lawyer Jessica (Alison Routledge), Alan’s evil father (John Ewart) and his slimy sidekick Spiggs (Frank Whitten in familiar guise), a self-ordained Catholic priest (Max Cullen), a local nurseryman (Jim Moriarty) and an unlikely psychiatrist, Dr Pitts (Grant lilly).

The movie is billed as a story of obsessive love and it obviously is, although, as with other elements in the film, we don’t see it develop in any way that made me really believe in it. Neither do we get a true feeling for Alan’s ambiguous relationship with Jessica; Steadman Senior and Spiggs are too nasty to be true and Pitts too silly; what’s the relationship between Alan and dad?

The film spends a lot of time going nowhere, dwelling instead on scenes that look good but fail to make connections.

The time could have been better spent with scenes that fleshed out the characters and moved things along.

Among the actors themselves, Routledge stands out for her well-tuned performance as Jessica, and Australian Cullen does good work in the role of the born-again Catholic “priest” with a drinking habit. Moriarty’s performance is nicely understated but fails to bring much life to the tree-loving character of George.

Gordon’s Alan Steadman is intense - a performance which, oddly, seemed to improve as the film progressed (was it shot in sequence?) - but this very intensity becomes wearing and the few glimpses we get of an ordinary bloke are a relief.

The Returning may be one of those films that improves with further viewing; but it’s unlikely the public will give it a second chance if it misses first time. It missed this one, despite its best intentions.