by JOANNE LATIMER

How exciting is it to speculate about director Deepa Mehta adapting a Carol Shields novel for the big screen? Very. The novel, The Republic of Love, is a query on the staying power of romantic love, which happens to be Mehta's territory. This is a Cancon project with hope. Will Mehta infuse the story with surrealism? Will she amp up the mermaid plot?

Sadly, no. Don't expect to be entranced. To her credit, Mehta did a crack job depicting the occasionally colourless quality of life as an ageing singleton. Even the handsome Bruce Greenwood, who plays Tom, looks haggard in Mehta's grey lighting scheme. When Tom and Fay (Emilia Fox) finally fall in love, they literally glow and cartoon flowers creep up from the bottom of the screen. This is wonderful, but it's too little, too late. The blood has already drained from the audience, who can hardly stand the dolorous Fay.

Fay, a curator who studies mermaids for a living, dumps her boring boyfriend because the relationship lacks passion. She meets Tom, a radio personality with a late-night show about love. He's also in a rut, after three failed marriages. With a circle of mutual friends, Fay and Tom feel safe enough to fall instantly, blindingly in love. That's when it all goes wrong - inside Fay's head. She gets cold feet and up-ends the romance. Things are bleak.

How can we wish a Hollywood director at the helm of a Canadian book adaptation? It sounds like sacrilege to suggest that an adaptation of a Shields novel could thrive under the wing of someone like Nora Ephron, who's currently writing Bewitched, but The Republic of Love needs a jolt. It's too glum. Granted, the novel isn't gleeful, but there's enough levity to entertain the idea of lasting love. The stellar cast (Edward Fox, Martha Henry, Gary Farmer and Jackie Burroughs) is straightjacketed by Mehta's respect for Shields' WASPy material, which is frustratingly internal for the big screen. Mehta, an otherwise great director, was too deferential.

The Republic of Love opens Friday, Feb. 13

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