'Fugitive Pieces' lacks drama

"To live with ghosts requires solitude," observes Jakob Beer, the tortured novelist hero of Jeremy Podeswa's plodding dramatic interpretation of Anne Michaels' novel.

As a child in World War II Poland, Jakob witnesses the Nazis shoot his father to death, then drag his mother and beloved sister Bella off, never to be seen again. As an adult, Jakob (played by Stephen Dillane, currently on view as the bad husband in "Savage Grace") is haunted by his past and his losses, which, as a writer, he funnels into beautiful, moving descriptions of his feelings and his experiences.

The origins of tormented artists can make for gripping dramas, but this isn't one of them. Podeswa, who previously gave us the eccentric "Eclipse" and "The Five Senses," chronicles the withdrawn Jakob's slow exorcism of his personal ghosts with leisurely pacing and an avalanche of flashbacks.

Most of these detail his relationship with a brave Greek archaeologist named Athos (Rade Sherbedgia) who found little Jakob in the forest and became his adoptive father. The beautiful blonde Alex (Rosamund Pike) falls in love with Jakob, but it's apparent something isn't quite right with their relationship. For a while, Jakob imagines he'll be forever alone. Then he meets Michaela (Ayelet Zurer), a dark beauty who enters his soul and seems to understand his grief.

Finally, Jakob's dreams about his sister Bella come to a close, but without a whit of the catharsis that should accompany such a personal triumph.

"Fugitive Pieces" opens today at the Pipers Alley in Chicago and the Renaissance Place in Highland Park. No MPAA rating (sexual situations, violence, nudity). 105 minutes.