REVIEWED - TROUBLE WITH SEX: Following his gritty Dublin thriller Flick, Fintan Connolly is on much more mellow form for Trouble With Sex, an engaging romantic drama which takes place in what one character describes as "Eire nua". The protagonists are both beset by niggling discontentment, writes Michael Dwyer.

Michelle (Renee Weldon) is an ambitious young Dublin lawyer with a smart apartment overlooking the Liffey, but dissatisfied in her relationship with a doctor (Declan Conlon) and concerned for her ageing mother (Susan Fitzgerald). Conor (Aidan Gillen) is lonely, unattached and dutifully running the traditional Dublin pub owned by his hard-drinking widower father (Eamonn Morrissey).

Late one night, an angry, tearswept Michelle bursts into the bar and orders a triple vodka. The consequences are explored and developed with honesty and credibility as these disparate characters tentatively draw closer to each other, but there are complications along the way, and pleasure and pain.

In her first leading role, Weldon sparkles with screen presence, belts out a fine version of Crowded House's Fall at Your Feet, and comfortably holds her own with the subtly expressive Gillen, a Tony nominee on Broadway last year and one of Ireland's finest actors.

Connolly propels the narrative with the keen sense of pacing and atmosphere he brought to Flick, and he makes effective use of varied Dublin locations attractively photographed by Owen McPolin.