I was surprised at how gripping this story turned out to be. I've never been that fond of Graham Greene. Somebody commits a sin, mopes around feeling gloomy, and it all ends unpleasantly. That happens here, too, but the plot is lifted out of the ordinary by the simplicity of the story and the splendid acting.

Anthony Hopkins commits a sin -- I guess. It's a sin I would have jumped to commit myself. He's one of about two dozen prisoners in a Nazi cell in France, three of whom must be chosen by lot for execution. Hopkins draws one of the three X's. He's scared witless and offers his estate, lands, money, and all other properties to anyone who will take his place. A young man accepts the offer in the name of his sister, Kristin Scott Thomas, and their mother -- two poor people living near Paris -- then goes to his death.

After his release, Hopkins wanders around and, with no particular place to go, winds up at his old estate, now dilapidated. Thomas and her moribund mother live there. They reluctantly invite him in and he winds up being the caretaker.

The problem is that Thomas knows all about the transfer of the estate and she hates Hopkins real character for buying his own life at the expense of her brother's. She has a pistol stashed away, hoping he'll show up so she can shoot him. Hopkins tells her nothing of his real identity, only claiming to have been in the same prison with Kristin's brother and having witnessed the transfer.

The old lady is bitter but in a very human way. Hopkins finds himself enjoying his new role in his old home. And Thomas gradually warms towards him -- still ignorant of who is really is. The mansion and its grounds begin to take on a more respectable appearance.

So far, so expectable. But then an impostor, Derek Jacobi, shows up claiming to be the original Hopkins. In reality, he's a nobody, thoroughly evil -- a collaborator, murderer, and accomplished liar. He invents all sorts of stories to glorify himself and to undermine Hopkins' status in the household and in Thomas's eyes.

I don't think I'll give away too much more of the plot. The man incapable of feeling guilt squares off against the man dying from a surfeit of it. Let's say that Hopkins does his penance and it's more demanding than one Our Father and Ten Hail Marys.

Hopkins gives one of his most striking performances. Not nearly as splashy as "The Silence of the Lambs" but at least as effective. He rarely does what we'd expect from a more routine enactment of his roles. I'll give one example. He and Thomas are alone in the kitchen of the big run-down estate, and she has just discovered one of Hopkins' lies -- a little one -- and she accuses him. Hopkins stares quietly back for a second, then drops his face and brings his fist to his mouth to gnaw a bit at his knuckle or fingernail, just like a man jostling along in a crowded subway might do in a state of mild distraction. Absolutely without bravura, and yet perfectly apt.

Derek Jacobi looks right for the part of the very villainous heavy, in that his appearance is bland and his manner tentative except when it slides into deliberate slime. Nice job.

Kristin Scott Thomas is a fine actress but she may not belong in the part of a superstitious working-class peasant. She's neatly groomed. Her cool blue eyes glow with intelligence. And her features are clean and even. She has the face of one of those exceptionally efficient nurses who know everything that's going on in the ward. I can't imagine her fingernails ever having been dirty.

All around, a memorable job by everyone concerned.

When the Germans invade northern France, they round up a hundred local men, including Anthony Hopkins. Being Nazis and all, they announce that ten of the prisoners will die, and leave it up to them to decide who. They decide on lots. Hopkins is one of the ten. He trades his lot with Timothy Watson, in return for all his goods. Watson leaves everything to his sister and mother.

Three years later, a bearded Hopkins is free and goes to his estate, where Kristen Scott Thomas and an ailing Brenda Bruce are in possession. They wait with fear and hatred Hopkins' return, so he claims to be a nobody and gets a job with them as a common laborer. Then one day,collaborator and fugitive Derek Jacobi, the son of one of the other men in the hundred, shows up, fleeing from the Resistance. He claims to be Anthony Hopkins.

It's based on a novel by Graham Greene that he turned into a script and left in the MGM archives in the mid-1940s. Director Jack Gold handles the film like it's a TV movie with enough of a budget for some extra location shooting. Hopkins plays his role in a repressed combination of shame for what he has done, love for Miss Thomas, and fear for the consequences of any revelation. With a better director, or a better lighting cameraman, the role might have worked. As it is, those who are familiar with Greene's world will understand what is going on. Those who approach it without any background will just find it bizarre.

A typical Graham Greene story, with many human factors, many human weaknesses, many human lies and many strange turns in a very human story. Anthony Hopkins is a very ordinary citizen, a very bourgeouis lawyer, well off with a chateau-like house outside Paris, working in Paris, when he goes in to town to work in 1940 gets rounded up by the Gestapo and put in prison on a waiting list for death. Although he shouldn't, he survives three years in that prison, while several of his fellow prisoners have been shot. He looks up the sister of one of them, Kristin Scott Thomas, and they become very good friends, until there is Derek Jacobi, who turns out to be a collaborator with the Germans, trying to take Kristin Scott Thomas for himself, which of course Anthony Hopkins can't quite accept. Perhaps the flaw of the story is its very human weakness, predominant in almost all of Graham Greene's novels. Here he should have told Thomas the real truth from the beginning and reveal who Jacobi really was, which he didn't which results in the consequences. It's perfect acting, a great human drama, a beautiful film and above all with wonderful music by Lee Holdridge, ideal film music for this kind of film. It is both one of Anthony Hopkins' and Kristin Scott Thomas' best performances in very delicate and tricky parts, she always does well in France, and this film and story is all French and very French. It's about the resistance in the war, the German tyranny, the intricate psychology of freedom fighters and collaborators, the son of Max Ophuls once made a very explicit film about this, clearing it all up in a unique documentary, while this film only touches on the problems and is focussed on the human factors. In brief, no Graham Greene admirer or reader of his books could be disappointed by this splendid feature on quite an intimate and chamber music level.