JONATHAN Demme made Silence Of The Lambs, Philadelphia and Beloved, so what has possessed him to re-make Stanley Donen's stylish if insubstantial Parisian romantic thriller Charade?

Where Donen in 1963 had heroic Cary Grant - 60 by then - and darling damsel Audrey Hepburn, the playful Demme settles for pop graduate Mark Wahlberg and Cambridge anthropology and archaeology graduate Thandie Newton. Not an obvious meeting of minds, and unsurprisingly their chemistry lacks fizz.

Demme employed Newton in Beloved too, so he must see something in her skinny bones but she stands no chance with one of those scripts that carries the deadening hand of four writers.

"Perhaps I will have that ciggie," she says, trying to come on all Parisian, as her willowy character learns that Charlie, her husband of three months, is dead and she is the prime suspect. Four scary types are after her and his stamp collection, but who's that young American (Wahlberg, awful) in the silly beret coming to her aid? Is he her knight, a spy or maybe the murderer?

Who cares. Demme is in flippant mood, a wink in his eye as he pastiches Parisian movie chic of the Sixties, but Charlie falls flat on its confused face, neither macabre nor black, never sexy or sassy. A charade in fact.

Updated: 08:49 Friday, May 16, 2003