Andrew Birkin's adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel is still as powerful and provocative as ever. Deeply uneasy viewing, it charts the increasingly close relationship between teenage siblings Jack (Andrew Robertson) and Julie (the superb Charlotte Gainsbourg, Birkin's niece) over the course of a long hot summer as they come to terms with the recent deaths of both their parents.
Set against a desolate London landscape of bomb sites and stark concrete shells, it deals with the equally stark topic of incest with delicacy and poetic elegance, always aware of where its boundaries lie.