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Penny Woolcock’s low-budget thriller, The Principles of Lust, is a far more audacious attempt to picklock convention. But it’s a film that loses its grip at the first corner and the director fails to regain control.

There’s an honourable, if alarming, tradition of struggling writers waiting to shoot themselves in the foot in British movies, and Paul (Alec Newman) is the blocked and charming scribe in this bracing, slightly crazed, scenario. At an art exhibition, he falls in love with a sensible single mother, Juliette (Sienna Guillory). Then, for reasons best known to himself, Newman proceeds to throw away his new-found security by hanging out with Billy (Marc Warren), a scary Marquis de Sade figure who gambles ...