A love less ordinary

Robin Askew talks to the stars and director of 'This Year's Love', a terrific new British romantic comedy which should - but probably won't - knock spots off its big budget American rival, 'You've Got Mail'.

There are two romantic comedies released this fortnight. Nora Ephron's You've Got Mail is the big, lazy American one, in which small bookshop owner Meg Ryan falls for corporate bastard Tom Hanks just after he's put her out of business by opening a pile-'em-high megastore round the corner. To get a handle on how intelligence-insultly improbably this is, try to imagine Mr. Sainsbury and Ms. Happy Shopper succumbing to their inevitable mutual attraction after he builds one of his big bastard supermarkets on the greenfield sit opposite her corner shop. But the star names and director Nora (When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle) Ephron's pedigree mean it's guaranteed to rake in the cash from undiscerning romantics whose brains have been turned to marshmellow by repeated exposure to such sugar-saturated fare.

The other romcom is British and doesn't have any toffs, country houses or token Americans in it. Inevitably, this means it will struggle to find an audience, despite the distributors' hopeful "This year's Full Monty/Four Weddings" hype. Instead, you get recognisable characters, a sharp and witty script, and a bunch of terrific performances from a cast of not-quite-household- names headed by that great national treasure Kathy Burke.

Unsurpringly, This Year's Love nearly didn't get past the script stage. "It was orginally written for the BBC as a Screen Two," explains softly-spoken direction David Kane. "But they didn't want to do it, so they gave it back to me quite quickly - within about a week, I'd say."

This "emotional comedy of errors" follows a group of six diverse, Camden-dwelling late-twentysomething/early-thirtysomethings - the fabled 'middle youth' of popular marketing lore - as their paths cross during the course of three years. They get off with each other, argue, take drugs, go to pubs and parties, make fools of themselves, and split up again. Just like real people. Although this character-driven ensemble piece is Kane's debut as a feature director, it's very much in the same vein as his acclaimed BBC drama Ruffian Hearts.

He confesses that he's fascinated by the changing nature of relationships. "The film is about sex, about people and how they treat each other. Things like that are what concern us. Everyone, to some extent, is preoccupied with their love life, so it's a pretty legitimate thing to write about. Relationships have changed a lot. People expect more in the nineties. To be married for 40 years is much more difficult. People in their thirties should be more grown up, but they aren't. They are still searching, but they find relationships difficult to sustain."

So has all this people-watching made more cynical about the whole relationship business? "Any more cynical?" he smiles. "No."

It's easy to see why Kane's cast jumped at the change to get involved, as his script offers them plenty to get their teeth into. Kathy Burke actually gets to sing. Catherine McCormack, who's previously languished in such piffle as The Land Girls and Dancing At Lughnasa, achieves a long-term ambition to do comedy, with a meaty role as a serial-shaggin heartbreaker. Ian Hart, surely this country's most under-rated actor, gets away from playing John Lennon for a change to tackle the complex part of a damaged loser. But perhaps the best performances are by Jennifer Ehle and Douglas Henshall.

A departure from her familiar costume drama work (she was Constance opposite Stephen Fry's Oscar in Wilde and won a BAFTA for her portrayal of Elizabeth Bennett in the Beeb's Pride and Prejudice, Ehle plays Sophie: a painfully right-on trustafarian single parent slumming it with the New Age bohemian crowd, her head full of aromatherapy cures and sporting an authetic tangle of hair extensions. Hell, you can't walk more than 100 yards in Montpelier without running into a Sophie. "It was liberating playing someone of whom there was no warmth or charm expected," she enthuses. "I had a run of parts, which I'm very grateful for, which were warm, wonderful women standing by their men. And Sophie's so different. That was a lot of fun."

Less fun were those extensions. "I was tempted to chop them all off or tear them out at times. They were in for about two months. It was pretty uncomfortable, but I couldn't complain because it had been sort of my idea."

Still, this did give her an insight into how an unconventional appearance can dramatically change the way you're perceived. "It was amazing, actually. I was going to an awards thing and I was buying jewellery from a shop. I went in and I was waiting for it and gradually I saw these security guards coming round like barracudas. Nobody actually said anything but they were definitely waiting for this person to go."

Douglas Henshall, who has more than a touch of the Martin Clunes about him and is probably still best known for his role as Corporal Berry in Dennis Potter's Lipstick on My Collar, also finally gets a chance to demonstrate his talent after such ill-advised career moves as If Only, the last and least of last year's trio of 'what ifs' flicks that began with Sliding Doors. "It seemed to have died on its arse," he laments. "I think it lasted about a fortnight in London. It was a terrible shame because I think it was a better film than that."

This could well prove to be the likeable and deprecating Scot's year as he'll also be seen shortly in Cannes award-winner Peter Mullan's eagerly anticipated Orphans, though you sense a certain nervousness. "It's coming to the stage where you think, well, I may very possibly never work again if people don't like it, because there's going to be a lot of things to dislike at the same time. Conversely, if people like it it could be very nice. It's a bit strange having all this stuff come out in one go. I've got no expectations, because I think you're all just lining up to get kicked in the teeth if you do that."

Any worried about being typecast as a romantic lead? "I don't think I have to worry about that at all, " he deadpans. "I'm stubborn anyway, so if those were the only things I was being sent I'd just no a lot and then go back to the same level of obscurity I had before."

Kane seems justly proud of being able to make the film without artistic compromise, even to the extent of resisting a pat happy ending. But what about that '18' certificate, which could restrict its audience? There's no explicit sex and just a little drug-taking. It's the authentic langeage that's made the censor all draconian. "If Saving Private Ryan can get a 15 and that's a bloodbath, I can't see why we can't be a 15," observes the director wryly. "But it seems that swear words are more offensive than massacres."

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