Crimson Peak review: Mia Wasikowska charms, but the gothic romance fails to woo

It is the 19th century, and Edith (Mia Wasikowska), a young American heiress and aspiring author, is swept off her feet by the dashing English baronet Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston).

Edith’s father (Jim Beaver) immediately takes a dislike to the visiting aristocrat, but he is mysteriously – or rather not so mysteriously – killed before he can voice his objections to his daughter, who is taken to Sharpe’s crumbling family pile to live with his sinister sister Lady Lucille (Chastain) and various ghosts.

Guillermo del Toro's well-staffed Gothic romance ought to play like an inverted Northanger Abbey. But somehow, despite a spectacular set, the film can't quite draw the viewer in. Away from the Manderley-ish opulence and the oozing walls, structurally, Crimson Peak is a mess.

From the get-go, Edith believes in and sees ghosts, so the appearance of any number of spectres is hardly surprising or, indeed, unnerving. The film’s big reveal – and we hesitate to use the term – is not only signposted, it’s trumpeted, billboarded and pounded home. And that’s before Edith stumbles on a cache of wax cylinders which, for the forgetful goldfish viewer, explain every detail once more.

Rather shockingly, del Toro – even with assistance from the director's monster muses Doug Jones (Pan's Labyrinth) and Javier Botet (Mama) – fails to wring sufficient (or any) shocks from the set-up or the lavish scenery. We ought to get Harry Potter-brand England "porn". We don't. We ought to get Woman in Black school jump-scares. We don't.

Instead we have operatic trappings but no singing or drama. Where’s the movie to go with this setting and these A-listers?