It is Midsummer Night in the 1890s in Sweden. Two people on different sides of the class system - a Count's daughter and a footman - form a strange relationship. But can they get away with this, while the other servants seem to catch onto their wicked game? And will they be able to leave, and form a happy life on their own? As Waldorf and Statler from the Muppets put it, "the question is: who cares?"

Miss Julie is a film that borders on being a hundred things. It borders on being shocking; it borders on being interesting; it borders on being erotic; it borders on being creative in its portrayal of these characters; it borders on having interesting characters. It borders upon being good. But it is none of these things.

Firstly, the film is very stagy. I enjoy plays, but I go to the theatre to see them. I wanted to see a film. It seems to stick far too closely to the source material. Essentially, the entire film is set in a very tight area - practically one room. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as we are involved enough with the characters to keep interested (Twelve Angry Men springs to mind). Here, any change of scenery at all would have been very welcome.

Secondly, Saffron Burrows was, I think, miscast in the role of the Count's daughter, I never felt at all emotionally involved with this character, and in scenes that we were supposed to feel emotionally challenged, I just felt quite awkward. Furthermore, I think that she delivered far too many of her lines in a way I did not think they should have been delivered.

But some of the dialogue is good, and Peter Mullan gives a reasonable performance, even if sometimes he too seems a little uncomfortable. And the split screen sex scene works quite well, and at least it looks different than the rest of the pretty dull stuff. The film is generally uninteresting, melodramatic and often very tedious.