It's a curt, nasty and deftly acted chamber piece high on laughs and savagery about frustrated idealism and how little it takes to make society fall to pieces.

Unassuming and old-fashioned funny entertainment isn’t exactly what we associate with this film-maker, but that’s what she has very satisfyingly served up here. It’s not especially resonant or profound but it is observant and smart, with some big laughs in the dialogue. The whole thing is enjoyably absurd though not precisely absurdist.

The most enjoyable film yet from a director whose conceptual seriousness has often seemed daunting.

Slight and self-contained, it won’t go down in cinema history as anything but, perhaps, the most purely fun film ever made by peculiar British experimentalist Sally Potter.

Patricia Clarkson steals the show, but everyone in Potter’s gifted cast gets their moment to shine in a sharp-edged, claustrophobic parlour piece that puts the boot into middle-class mores.