In spite of the star line-up (Robert de Niro, Gwyneth Paltrow and Nathan Hawke) this modernisation of Charles Dickens's classic is insipid pap which, with its poppy soundtrack and glossy visuals, is aimed squarely at younger viewers.

Whimsical direction is part of the problem, and then there's the script. Scriptwriter Mitch Glazer has ransacked Dickens for the characters and essential ingredients of a story - broken hearts, revenge, mysterious inheritances - but is unable to make these work in a modern setting. Dickens's heavily drawn characters are toned down for modern audiences, but to the point of being bland.

The familiar story is transposed to Florida. Impoverished, young Finn (Dickens' Pip) is introduced as a boy to the beautiful but aloof Estella. Although classes apart, Finn is expected to play with the young Estella. He falls for her, and she plays him along, teasing and talking down to him.

Estella's guardian is the reclusive eccentric Miss Dinsmoor (Dickens's Miss Havisham), who having being jilted at the wedding altar has sworn revenge on all men. Her secret weapon is Estella, who she is grooming to be a breaker of mens' hearts. Finn is the first conquest.

In the early stages of the film the gothic ambience is laid on thick: Miss Dinsmoor's festering mansion, left exactly as it was on her wedding day, has a strong sense of aristocratic decay. Everything is rotting, even it seems, the flesh under Miss Dinsmoor's pancake. She's a bit of a horror to look at, to put it mildly.

Then the film cuts from the childhood years to late teens. Eh? The characters, now played by Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow, appeared to have developed little, unless you count Hawke's bad hair cut. There are a few gratuitous semi-nude scenes which give us little more information on how these two people have changed in their relation to each other, except that sex has come into the equation.

Character development is not really an issue in a story that leaves little more impression than a flip through a stranger's photo album. In fact, with its regular pop-video style montages, you would be forgiven for thinking that this is just an exercise in selling the film's soundtrack.

You could say that this is unfortunate for the actors who never get a chance to prove themselves. De Niro, in his small part as the escaped convict, is at his scene-stealing best. It is just a pity that the rest of the production wasn't working from the same script as he was.