Love Is The Devil Details

This biographical drama from director John Maybury is a highly stylised account of Francis Bacon's abrasive affair with reformed thief George Dyer. Portraying lovers divided by culture and class, Derek Jacobi gives a remarkable physical impersonation of Bacon, while Daniel Craig is a model of repressed anger and bemused despair. The director's use of distorting lenses, reflective surfaces, angular close-ups and split-screen devices to convey both the couple's dislocated world and the style of Bacon's paintings is bold and inspired. However, the vignette structure deprives the film of some much-needed momentum, while the dialogue is pretentiously epigrammatic.

A wittily artificial biopic of Francis Bacon, which, in the absence of any of Bacon's paintings, contrives to imitate their style; it is blessed with a brilliant performance from Jacobi as the self-absorbed artist.