REVIEWED - TAKE MY EYES (TE DOY MIS OJOS): Iciar Bollaín has written a well-received study of Ken Loach, and viewers might thus expect her to bring some of that director's ordered messiness to this Spanish drama concerning domestic abuse, writes Donald Clarke.

In fact, the film is - and this is not meant as criticism - a reasonably mainstream business. Attractively shot in the medieval town of Toledo, featuring a nagging score by Alberto Iglesias, Take My Eyes tumbles forwards with formidable momentum and, though occasionally a tad contrived, is never less than gripping.

The picture begins with Pilar (the convincingly jittery Laia Marull) fleeing the family home with her young son. She goes to stay with her sister who, in a scene that often occurs in such pictures, later comes across the frightened woman's medical records and deduces that Pilar's inarticulate husband Antonio has been beating hell out of her. Gradually Pilar develops an independent life, but tension builds as Antonio starts trying to win her back.

Bollaín, who also co-wrote the script, dares to attempt an analysis of just what it is that makes husbands violent and suggests that, with skilled counselling and the will to change, such abusers might be capable of reform. But, sadly, the well researched scenes in which Antonio undergoes analysis with a group of similarly misogynistic oafs play a little too much like regurgitated case studies.

More damagingly, the director never finds a way of getting us to give a hoot about her antagonist. Having come to identify so closely with Pilar, most viewers will find themselves wishing she would just push the ignorant buffoon off a cliff.