The festival's gala section features new works from Bernardo Bertolucci, John Sayles, Notting Hill's Roger Michell and Amores Perros director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
Yet the screenwriter, Hanif Kureishi, and the director, Roger Michell, shamelessly milk the pathos of infirmity, lurching heedlessly from one prefabricated poignancy to another.