Choice: Film; Metroland

Metroland, Odeon West End 2, London W1 (0171-420 1122)

When Emily Watson starred in Breaking the Waves, critics went wild and awards were quite rightly heaped upon her. "Where had she sprung from," they asked. Not exactly from nowhere. She played the nasty girl at the centre of The Children's Hour at the National Theatre for starters. But where has she been since Breaking the Waves? Making Metroland is part of the answer. Philip Saville, director of the great TV series Boys from the Blackstuff, directs this suburban comedy of manners, adapted from the first novel by Julian Barnes (above). Showing as part of the London Film Festival whose director, Adrian Wotton, describes it as a sort of sophisticated Likely Lads. Hmm... and there was I thinking that Dick Clement and Ian la Frenais's scripts were sophisticated anyway... David Benedict