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