Director Michael Radford's little-seen follow-up to the universally loved Il Postino is a romantic drama about the unlikely relationship that develops between a gentle, jazz-loving teacher (Jared Harris) and an impulsive criminal (Asia Argento) with a heart of gold. Argento sees in Harris an opportunity to leave her dangerous life behind her, while Harris sees in Argento the excitement and adventure that's missing from his staid, bookish existence, yet the romance at the center of B. Monkey remains curiously inert. Radford's film resembles, at least superficially, Jonathan Demme's far superior Something Wild, but, while Demme's film radically shifts gears halfway through to develop into something darker and richer, Radford never finds an appropriate tone at all, making the film's twists feel arbitrary and forced. Part of B. Monkey's problem is its lack of dramatic urgency: Radford never makes Argento's criminal tendencies seem like anything other than a particularly eccentric hobby (not unlike, say, Civil War reenactments), even as her dealings with shady characters put her and Harris' lives in danger. Rupert Everett delivers a scene-stealing supporting turn as Argento's jaded, desperately cool criminal mentor, but his performance hints at a strain of dark, fatalist humor that's absent from the rest of this engaging but ultimately forgettable film.