Self Made

Directed by Gillian Wearing Club, IFI, Dublin, 83 min

THE ERSTWHILE Young British Artists are continuing their cautious advance into cinemas. Three years ago Steve McQueen stayed true to his unsettling sensibility with the magnificent Hunger. In 2009, Sam Taylor- Wood moved closer to the mutliplex with Nowhere Boy.

On paper, the first feature by Gillian Wearing reads very much like a characteristically avant- garde exercise. Already well known for involving the general public in her icy work, Wearing began the project by placing an advertisement in newspapers and job centres. The copy read: “Would you like to be in a film? You can play yourself or a fictional character. Call Gillian.”

The successful candidates were encouraged to participate in a method-acting programme. After chewing over various emotional problems, the participants then appear in short films featuring characters they have created or with whom they identify. One plays an angry man in the street. Another acts out a key scene from King Lear.

The material has the potential to generate something worryingly strange and archly voyeuristic. But, within minutes of the action kicking off, an unwelcome realisation creeps across the brain. Self Madehas the shape and tone of a Channel 4 reality show. While learning a new talent, a group of "ordinary people" reveal their inner lives and learn to heal themselves. Far from insidiously hinting at inner demons, the final films are every bit as explicit – the King Learwoman had a problem with her dad – as you'd expect from primetime TV.

Yes, Wearing is less manipulative in her editing and shooting. The camera stays static most of the time. Sentimental music and creeping close-ups are blissfully absent from the confessional sequences. Still, one does yearn for a little of the narrative structure that the television johnnies would bring to such an enterprise.

As it stands, Self Madeseems weirdly stranded between the outré and the mainstream. It's easy to understand but difficult to warm to.