Director Deborah Warner makes a confident crossover from theatre into cinema with The Last September, which has been elegantly adapted by John Banville from Elizabeth Bowen's novel. Set in September 1920, it acutely observes the dying days of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy known as the Ascendancy.

The young English actress, Keeley Hawes, brings a beguiling freshness to the pivotal role of the free-spirited Lois Farquar who lives on the Co Cork estate of her uncle (Michael Gambon) and his wife (Maggie Smith).

As local nationalists up the ante in their conflict with the Black and Tans, the estate is visited by a couple (Lambert Wilson and Jane Birkin) who are down on their luck, and by a London socialite (Fiona Shaw), a former lover of the Wilson character.

The parallel themes of the nationalist struggle for independence and young Lois's own yearnings for freedom eventually merge in a rather awkward contrivance through which she becomes sexually involved with a former childhood friend who is now an IRA gunman (Gary Lydon). The film is altogether more persuasive in its depiction of the end of an indolent era and the self-deluding appearances adopted by the emotionally repressed and inwardly insecure characters regarding their fate.

Shot in a series of painterly compositions by the Polish cinematographer, Slawomir Idziak, this assured and involving study of a collective state of mind features Maggie Smith on sparkling, pursed-lipped, acerbic form and Fiona Shaw in a warm and radiant performance which significantly enhances this resonant drama.