by MATTHEW HAYS

The gap is so wide it's impossible not to notice. And, indeed, it does seem unfair that so many male actors over the age of 45 appear to get some of the juiciest roles of their entire careers, while women of the same age and vocation get little more than evil mother roles. Take recent jaunts by Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino and Michael Caine, and compare them to Jane Fonda, Faye Dunaway and Jessica Lange.

Thus I'm reluctant to trash a film like The Book of Eve, which tries to hand British stage and screen vet thespian Claire Bloom a dimensional role about a woman grappling with the final stage of her life. Here, she's stuck in Westmount, hovering over a nasty, grumpy old husband, making her less of a life partner and more of a nursemaid. It's a depressing life, hers, and we can certainly understand why. Humdrum hubby is pretty bloody insensitive, at best, and their grown son seems a corporate climbing type. Fed up, she packs her bags and hits the road, buoyed by her first social security cheque which arrives on the day of her 65th birthday.

Though the dialogue seemed pretty clunky up until this point, I'd hoped the film might pick up when Bloom steps out for life on her own. But the bad dialogue continues, as do unbelievable situations - a Montreal apartment where all the neighbours end up interacting like they're buddies (I've never seen a place like this before, not unless people have lived their together for years), and a romantic relationship that crops up in such a way as to appear simply ludicrous.

I'll say this much: the film did leave me wanting to read the source material, Constance Beresford-Howe's praised novel of the same name. This does feel like one of those page-to-screen adaptations that simply hasn't worked (despite the pedigree of director/co-screenwriter Claude Fournier). Sad to report, but something has been lost in the shift here, leaving the film version of The Book of Eve lacking.

The Book of Eve opens Friday, May 2

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