Bel Canto starring Julianne Moore is mind-boggingly awful with too much flab

BASED on a best-selling novel by Ann Patchett, Bel Canto is a love story/hostage thriller about a guerrilla group who take a private function in South America chock full of politicians, diplomats and world-famous opera singer Roxanne Coss (Julianne Moore), hostage - demanding the release of all political prisoners.

Over the next month, as negotiations take place and then wane, relationships begin to forge that not only define Stockholm syndrome - but take it to another level.

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Relationships form, the lines get blurred and despite the attempts of supercool negotiator Messnr (The Tunnel’s Sebastian Koch).

The cast are given some themes to explore and to an extent do them quite well - but there is far too much flab before the admittedly brutal payoff - and I’m sorry, but there is absolutely no excuse from either Julianne Moore or director Paul Weitz for the worst lip-syncing seen on screen since Gene Pitney on This Morning.

It’s so utterly, mind-bogglingly awful I could think of nothing else and spent most of the film chuckling in all the wrong places.

Bel Canto 102 mins (15)

★★☆☆☆