ACTOR and cookery book writer Stanley Tucci returns to the director’s chair after a decade-long absence with Final Portrait (15).

Running at City Screen, York, for a week from tomorrow, Tucci's 90-minute film sketches the frustrations of creative genius with a fascinating and witty glimpse into the workshop and personality of Swiss sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti (played by Geoffrey Rush).

In Paris in 1964, Giacometti bumps into an old friend, American writer and art-lover James Lord (Armie Hammer), and invites him to sit for a portrait. Assured that it would take half a day at most, Lord accepts. However, a half-day turns into days, days turn into weeks, as Giacometti rages at the canvas, unconvinced of his talent.

Both flattered and frustrated, Lord cancels a series of flights home. With no end in sight, he is a prisoner to the artist’s whims, but as the brushstrokes ebb and flow, Lord ultimately sees logic in the chaos and painter and subject develop an unusual bond.

Tickets can be booked on 0871 902 5726 or at picturehouses.com/cinema/York_Picturehouse