Belated touring tribute to David Lean

Lean worked as a director for hire on this glossy adaptation of a minor H.G. Wells novel to relieve producer Ronald Neame of a problematic project. As a consequence, the film is meticulous, clipped and highly cinematic. But it's also a rather passionless affair, with the haughty Ann Todd struggling to convey either the ethical or emotional turmoil she experiences after remeeting old flame Trevor Howard while enduring a loveless marriage to Claude Rains.

Indeed, there's more warmth in Guy Green's Alpine landscapes than Todd's icy demeanour, as she weighs up whether she prefers ardour and ignominy to material comfort and social respectability. So, while this is a fascinating snapshot of upper-middle-class mores in postwar Britainat the height of the postwar socialist revolution, it cries out for a heroine with the sensitivity of Celia Johnson, the Brief Encounter star who lived in Nettlebed, near Henley.

Directors of Lean's vintage may have carped about the shortcomings of the British film industry, but there are still copious opportunities for the ambitious to make their mark. Roger Goldby spent six years raising the funds for his debut feature, The Waiting Room, and that was after he received an Oscar nomination for his 1998 short, It's Good to Talk. It was worth the wait, however, as this debut feature interweaves its plot strands with a structural confidence and character depth that is unusual for Brit ensemblers.

Many neophytes would have concentrated on single mum Anne-Marie Duff's crush on male nurse Ralf Little. But Goldby concocts a credible context of subplots, with Little being reluctant to have a child with girlfriend Christine Bottomley and Duff having an affair with needy househusband Rupert Graves that provokes a gnawing sense of guilt towards his over-achieving, but insecure wife, Zoe Telford. With further nuance coming in the form of OAPs Phyllida Law and Frank Finlay, who guide Little towards a life-changing decision, Allan Corduner as Bottomley's protective father, and Adrian Bower as Duff's under-achieving ex-husband, this feels more like a little slice of life than a romcom.

James Aspinall's autumnal images of South London give the action an extra glow. But Masakazo Ato is given free rein to bombard the viewer with conspicuous compositions in Tetsuya Nakashima's Kamikaze Girls (2004), which is showing at the ICA in London.

If truth be told, the audiovisual ingenuity occasionally errs towards stridency. But this is a hugely entertaining odd couple story, in which rococo-attired teenager Kyôko Fukada strikes up an unlikely friendship with Anna Tsuchiya, a biker rebel who wants Fukada to embroider a jacket for her gang leader's passing out parade. Many of their adventures are inconsequential and their banter is often banal. But there's a real chemistry between the pair and, while it's hard to become agitated about whether they can track down a fabled seamstress or whether Fukada will take a job with her favourite designer, the bravura nature of Nakashima's direction consistently sustains interest - with flashbacks to the less-than-romantic first meeting of Fukada's parents and her frantic scooter dash to save Tsuchiya from a cat fight (complete with a mid-air out-of-body experience strewn with cabbages and Pachinko balls) being the standouts.

The visuals are also the strong point of the finest jazz documentary ever, Let's Get Lost (1988). Photographer-director Bruce Weber clearly idolises his subject - personifies Chet Baker's fading 1950s Beat spirit - but the trumpeter refuses to expose his soul. He's willing to have his ravaged good looks shot in a manner that suggests James Dean meets Dorian Gray. But he leaves the observations to the talking heads as he affects an air of messily, moody magnificence that is iconically captured in Jeff Preiss's inky monochrome images.