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'Asylum': Chilly potboiler

If D.H. Lawrence were alive today and really needed the money, he might be writing dumbed-down potboilers for the movies like Asylum.

Set in the repressed British countryside of the 1950s, Asylum oozes with sexuality, but only for the sake of punishing those who indulge in such forbidden physical activity. Chief among them would be Stella Raphael (Natasha Richardson), wife of a cold, impassive, button-down man named Max, who has just been appointed deputy superintendent of a dank, Gothic mental asylum.

Paramount Classics 'Asylum' C The verdict: An arch and literary tale of repressed sexuality unleashed, but nothing to be taken seriously. Directors: David MacKenzie, Mace Neufeld, Edward Saxon Starring: Natasha Richardson, Marton Csokas, Ian McKellen, Hugh Bonneville, Sean Harris Run time: 90 minutes Release date: August 12, 2005 Rating: R for strong sexuality, some violence and brief language. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate "Asylum" Go see it 60.00% 18 Make it a matinee 6.67% 2 Wait to rent 23.33% 7 Don't bother 10.00% 3

It is a post so lofty that he gets to bring along his wife and small son Charlie to live within the institution's walls, in proximity to the patients. Max's hiring also brings with it the animosity of veteran administrator Dr. Peter Cleves (an aptly creepy Ian McKellen), who feels passed over and who so identifies with his more severe cases that he might as well be one of them.

Based on a novel by Patrick McGrath, whose father was superintendent of an asylum for the criminally insane, the film feels much more literary than grounded in reality. Stella grows bored quickly and is not fully occupied by her hobbies of smoking and drinking. Just as Lady Chatterley had her stable hand, it is all but inevitable that Stella will find an outlet for her submerged passions as well.

Enter inmate Edgar Stark (Marton Csokas, The Bourne Supremacy), reeking of danger and animal magnetism. A former sculptor, he is assigned odd jobs around the Raphael house, including repairs on the dormant greenhouse. Curious about his artwork, Stella inquires what he did and is told "Heads," a succinct description of Edgar's history, since he decapitated his wife.

Nevertheless, after an improbable dance together at the asylum's annual ball, Stella and Edgar take their choreography horizontal, flattening the ferns in Stella's garden, going oddly unnoticed by anyone nearby. It is just a matter of time, of course, before Stella leaves her husband and son behind and escapes with Edgar into the outside world. How they survive and pay for Stella's tobacco habit is unclear, but presumably we are supposed to be so caught up in her unbridled emotions to worry about such mundane matters.

Richardson really deserves better than Asylum, but she invests herself in its pulp fiction, trying to anchor it in some truth. Making that all the harder is the way we keep getting snapped out of the story noticing how often the actress looks uncannily like her mother, the regal Vanessa Redgrave.

Csokas is appropriately sullen, busily emitting testosterone, which is pretty much all he is asked to do. McKellen, on the other hand, is the only one in the cast who seems to be having much fun. He gets to become increasingly more loony in a role that does not really add up, but no actor with a sense of humor would think of turning it down.

Director David Mackenzie (of Young Adam, a similarly obsessive tale) does what he can to rein in the story's excesses, but that would take a filmmaker of Herculean strength. The script is credited to Chrysanthy Balis and Patrick Marber, the latter being the playwright and adapter of Closer, which managed a less arch exploration of sexual gamesmanship.

There is diversion to be had with Asylum and a few good performances to relish. But those who insist on taking a dramatic narrative seriously had better look elsewhere.