In this kingdom of the united, we do irony quite well. An example of which, you would think, comes in the form of Justin Anderson, a Brit making his directorial debut, which opens with the following statement – A film by Justin Anderson.

The irony being that no one will really knows of Anderson, with this being his first feature, nor, incidentally, cares.

The irony will soon wane thin having watched it, when you realise that perhaps the debutant director is taking himself, and his film, far too seriously, based as it is on writer Deborah Levy’s short novel of the same name.

Having picked a friend up from the airport, Isabel (Mackenzie Davis) returns to her Greek holiday home to find a naked woman in her swimming pool. Her name is Kitti (Ariane Labed), and she is a friend of Vito (Anastasios Alexandropoulos), who works for Isabel and her husband Josef (Christopher Abbott).

The plan was for Vito to take her to a hotel, but Isabel insists that she stays with them.

Her husband is less keen for the stranger to stay, as she focuses her attention on him, especially when she learns he’s a poet.

Kitti has the ability to make herself right at home however, despite his feelings, and her arrival is likely to disrupt the harmony of the entire family.

The one thing you can say about Anderson’s debut is that it’s far from generic. But in the same sense, you kind of wish that it was.

It’s a very stilted affair, made worse by characters that aren’t exactly warm. Dialogue is trite, scenes are static, and there’s an unreachable distance with every character.

On top of that, there are a number of scenes that involve ‘artistic’ dance numbers, which mainly involve female dancers dancing crab-like.

You wonder if Anderson is wearing his influences on his sleeve, such as French New Wave, but you would think it would be more apt to develop your own style instead of just borrowing heavily off the bat for your first film.

There is one scene, that passes as somewhat interesting, when a character takes on the position of a painting on the wall, but it’s not enough to sit through this insufferable borefest, that no doubt considers itself a work of art, but never was a truer word spoken, by Oscar Wilde, when he declared all art “quite useless”.

Having not read the book, there’s every chance that this is a faithful adaptation, but having watched this, there’s absolutely no impetus to find out if that’s the case or not.

You could say that this is most certainly a memorable debut, but sadly for all the wrong reasons.