Quartet

Novelist Isabelle Adjani begins an adulterous relationship with wealthy Alan Bates despite the close proximity of her lover's wife. Anthony Higgins plays the imprisoned and ignorant cuckold, while Maggie Smith provides a tragic tinge as the other outcast. Merchant-Ivory's drama is too subtle to fully explore the melancholy of the situation, but the photography and sets offer the film-makers' typical visual flair