Cast your mind back a decade to the Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore rom-com 50 First Dates, wherein Barrymore would wake every morning with no recollection of the previous day and Sandler would have to woo her all over again.

It was a silly bit of fluff, except that it wasn't really any more implausible than Before I Go to Sleep, which delivers a darker version of that same premise with far less entertaining results.

Christine Lucas (Nicole Kidman) wakes every morning with no memory of anything in her life up to that point.

The man in her bed is Colin Firth, who says he's her husband, Ben, and he seems very supportive of her, talking her through her condition as she goes in to the bathroom to find the walls covered in photos of their life together.

But the way in which this chilly thriller is styled means that clearly all is not what it seems, and seeds of mystery and doubt are sown early. We move to two weeks earlier, when a man claiming to be her doctor (Mark Strong) phones Christine and tells her that her husband is lying to her about the real truth.

He tells Christine that she should keep a video diary that she can watch each morning to remind herself of who she is and what's going on and try to get a handle on just what people's games are. As she tries to remember and details of her past are filled in for both Christine and the audience, intrigue gives way to repetition and boredom.

Mistrust figures highly throughout, but that's because this is a movie far more interested in sleight of hand than developing its characters in interesting ways.

Firth skulks about making himself look suspicious and whether he or Strong (or anyone else for that matter) can be trusted is pretty much the basis for everything. Kidman is fine, but there are unlikely to be any actors who can spin gold from something this breathless and strained.

It's based on a well-regarded bestseller by S J Watson, but what may have worked well enough on the page is rendered plain daft on screen by thundering great plotholes. As events and revelations become increasingly preposterous, what should in reality have been a gripping thriller is crushed under the weight of its own monumental silliness.

Director: Rowan Joffe

Running Time: 94 mins

The tremendous success of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel has clued studios in to the spending potential of the more mature audience, but they've created a monster if they think those audiences will turn out for any old treacly mush that just happens to have over-60s in it.

Though she isn't quite the star, Helen Mirren gets above-the-title billing here as the snooty owner of a Michelin-starred restaurant in a small French town.

It's to this town that an Indian family headed by Om Puri has travelled with dreams of opening a restaurant of their own, even if it means trying to cater to people with no interest in non-French food.

As cultural differences and similarities are explored in cosy fashion, the focus shifts to the eldest son and his chefing ambitions, with too much time spent talking about how magical and soulful food is rather than letting the dishes speak for themselves as it witters on interminably with no meat on its bones.

Running Time: 122 mins

Director: Lasse Hallström

Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel star in this uncommonly bawdy comic romp as a couple worn out by years of marriage and kids, whose intimate video ends up - through a series of improbable contrivances - on the computers of several of their friends and family members.

As they race around trying to retrieve or delete the copies, the bigger the film gets the funnier it ain't. But in its more restrained moments a couple of legitimate laughs are pulled out of the hat thanks to two skilled performances, even as the daftness and absurdity of the situation escalates.

But it's a one-joke movie that doesn't half outstay its welcome once the joke has worn thin.

Running Time: 94 mins

Director: Jake Kasdan

Dan Stevens swaps the refinement of Downton Abbey for the disrepute of this crisp thriller that isn't quite selling what you think you might be buying.

Stevens stars as David, who appears at the home of a family claiming to be an army buddy of their late son, each of whom have problems of their own. David is soon helping them with their various issues, whether that's battering school bullies or confronting undesirables, but while that's the basic setup suggested in the trailer, it heads off into darker territory that ultimately proves less satisfying than if it were just a film of David taking names for 90 minutes.

Stevens is pitching for the Ryan Gosling in Drive vote with his brooding, mysterious protector turn and he shows real star potential, but this is an 80s B-movie that offers moderate action fun, a few grim chuckles and not a whole lot more.

Running Time: 100 mins Director: Adam Wingard