Hal Hartley knows how to begin a film, and he certainly knows how to end one, but his middles have become increasingly cluttered over the years. This somehow worked for his last feature, a four-star affair called Henry Fool, which dealt with one of the most untameable things there is: passion. But no such luck for this year's No Such Thing, a movie with so little to say that I grew to resent it despite jibing with it initially. A literal remake of Beauty & the Beast after several pictures that have Hartley siccing ugly men on attractive women, No Such Thing breaks no new ground and treads old turf like a hippopotamus ballerina.

The film opens on a profane alcoholic character we've met in Hartley's universe a number of times, though never in this exact form, as a two-horned monster living in solitude on the rock-ribbed shores of Iceland. The unnamed beast (Hartley regular Robert John Burke) trashes the village surrounding his cabin like a spoiled rock star in a giddy prologue that sets him apart from Disney's grumpy teddy bear and Jean Cocteau's matinee-idol freak--he's Beetlejuice on a lost weekend. "Beauty" here is Beatrice (Sarah Polley), a gofer at a cable news outlet in apocalyptic New York City. She's received a package from The Monster, a clue as to the whereabouts of her missing fiancée, who went to Iceland as part of a remote crew that never returned. "The Boss," played by a fast-talking (natch), chain-smoking (double-natch) Helen Mirren, agrees to send Beatrice in pursuit of the full story, and Beatrice's plane crashes, leaving her paralyzed; without warning, No Such Thing has suddenly turned into The Sweet Hereafter.

Beatrice is rehabilitated by an Icelandic doctor (Julie Christie) and sent back on her way to The Monster, whom she meets, learns killed her boyfriend, and then agrees to escort to America in search of myopic Dr. Artaud (Baltasar Kormákur), a scientist capable of destroying matter. (The Monster is immortal but has a death wish.) If the deal that Beatrice strikes with her would-be husband's murderer seems a tad lenient (even if the goal is to obliterate The Monster, it will bring him what he desires), what to make of her change of heart towards selling out (as an accident survivor, she refuses to talk to the press, but on their way to the U.S. Beatrice brags to The Monster, "I think we're gonna be famous"), or her whiplash transformation into a leather-clad trollop? (From her customary Weeping Willow entrance I was sure that Polley would not wear the dominatrix outfit in which you see her on the cover of No Such Thing, but alas it is not a Photoshop fabrication.)

And please, Hal, going for the throat of the media? (Mirren's opportunistic Boss keeps Artaud away from The Monster to build viewer anticipation, resulting in limp satire of such ratings-driven tactics.) Is it 1995 again? Besides which, Henry Fool had the last word on celebrity, exploring it from myriad uncharted angles; Hartley's spinning his wheels in No Such Thing, throwing rigged darts at sitting ducks distractedly. Were it not for the amusing performance of Burke or the merciless closing shot (which drags on just long enough to engender sympathy), No Such Thing would provoke mere hostility.

Mastered in-house by backers American Zoetrope, MGM's DVD release of No Such Thing contains a 1.66:1 non-anamorphic widescreen transfer that looks of the first-generation DVD era: colourful but plagued by edge-enhancement and subsequent 'jaggies.' Authoring is smooth, though, the image stable. The 5.1 soundmix contributes Hartley's score and some rolling-waves ambience to the surrounds; dialogue is consistently clear. Extras include a trailer and only a trailer for No Such Thing.-Bill Chambers