Ananova:

Starring: Stephen Tompkinson, Daniel Craig, Toni Collette, Katrin Cartlidge, Peter Vaughn, Hugh O'Conor

Violence: YES

Swearing: YES

Sex: YES

Rating: 2/5

Reminiscent of the nightmarish fantasy worlds of Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen, The City Of Lost Children) or Roald Dahl, Terence Gross's stylistically bold comedy is something of an acquired taste, juggling slapstick with elements of the absurd, tinged with the grotesque.

Hotel Splendide is a decaying guesthouse from a bygone age, located on the edge of some godforsaken island, which has been run for years by the dysfunctional Blanche family. When overbearing mother finally kicks the bucket, eldest brother Dezmond (Stephen Tompkinson) assumes control, continuing to run the hotel to his mater's strict orders.

Younger brother Ronald (Daniel Craig) reigns supreme in the kitchen, serving up an unappetising menu of fish-based dishes to age-old recipes, and sister Cora (Katrin Cartlidge) administers a strict regime of mud baths and enemas in the treatment room.

The guests are equally eccentric, harbouring deeply buried secrets which consign them to the mould-infested walls of Hotel Splendide. Stanley (Hugh O'Conor) is terrified of the water and becomes paralysed at the mere thought of stepping onto a boat to leave the island. Many a night he can be found entertaining his fellow inmates, sorry guests, with his keyboard wizardry and sharp dance moves.

Immigrant Sergei (Joerg Stadler) shrouds himself in a special body suit, mask and goggles to protect his ultra-sensitive skin from the sunlight. He too dreams of the day he can leave the island, building a beautiful 10 foot bird out of matchsticks to carry him across the treacherous waters.

Chaos descends in this haphazard mini-universe when Ronald's former sous-chef and lover Kath (Toni Collette), who had been banned from the island by mother, returns to the hotel and re-ignites long dormant passions. She dares to question the traditions of Hotel Splendide, gradually winning over the hotel guests with her spicy and aromatic dishes full of exciting new flavours.

As tradition and discipline fly out the window, supplanted by laughter and a hearty appetite for life, Dezmond struggles to maintain control of his crumbling empire, going to ever extreme lengths to stop Ronald from running away with Kath to the fabled mainland.

An eclectic British casts plays second fiddle to Gross's dazzling visual palette, envisioning the titular hotel as a twisted wonderland of leaking pipes, rotting furniture and muted lightning. Production designer Alison Dominitz and director of photography Gyula Pados have excelled themselves, bringing to life the house that time and IKEA forgot.

The architecture is larger than life with a hint of gothic, subtly dwarfing the guests. It is almost an embodiment of the late Mrs Blanche - the pipes hissing disapproval when Kath reappears on the scene - right down to the ingenious heating system which recycles the guests' waste and converts the methane gas into fuel for the temperamental heating system.

Collette is luminous, standing out in her grim and gloomy surroundings, while Craig provides an excellent comic and romantic foil, getting his hands mucky in the kitchen preparing a stomach-churning array of herring-based starters and main courses.

Tompkinson just about manages to prevent his weasely hotel manager from straying into the realms of caricature, and Cartlidge wrings every emotion out of her caged lovebird, who is secretly in love with one of the guests, the enigmatic Sergei, but cannot declare her feelings for fear of angering her brother Dezmond.

The hotel setting provides Gross with plenty of scope for sub-plots. Most of the characters develop sufficiently before the big bang check-out, but some are noticeably sidelined including Peter Vaugh's butler with an S&M fetish, and Helen McCrory's bit on the side. Hotel Splendide is intriguing while it lasts, but it's certainly not somewhere you would want to stay for too long.

Have you seen this film? Email us your opinions

What the papers say:

CHRISTOPHER TOOKEY, DAILY MAIL: The script resembles Fawlty Towers without the laughs. Some fine British actors are reduced to playing grotesque caricatures that are neither funny nor interesting.

THE EXPRESS: The director's imagination isn't forceful enough and an undercurrent of whimsy is the film's undoing.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The character's are too eccentric to be moving and the tension is too cartoon-like to matter.

THE INDEPENDENT: Trying for the savagery of Delicatessen, Hotel Splendide comes over like a pretentious version of Pollyanna.

THE GUARDIAN: Terence Gross's uptight debut is so blocked up on its own kookiness, its pursed-lip acting so suggestive of trapped wind, that you quite fear for its health.

	Check for more on: Stephen Tompkinson Film reviews Entertainment