Choice: Film

Oscar and Lucinda, Manchester Cornerhouse (0161-228 2463) and on selected release

And just who are Oscar Hopkins and Lucinda Leplastrier? He is the Devon- born son of Plymouth Brethren, she a stubborn Australian glass heiress. They're both gamblers. Big time. Not that he has much to lose, but she's got her entire fortune. Peter Carey's door- and heartstopping novel was the hugely deserving winner of the 1988 Booker Prize (against stiff opposition from The Satanic Verses, among others) which makes it a hat trick for Ralph Fiennes, who has starred in two other films of Booker winners - Thomas Keneally's Schindler's Ark (1982) and Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient (1992). Top marks for taste. Aside from fine screen adaptations such as My Brilliant Career and the recent Little Women (which reduced grown men to tears), director Gillian Armstrong's CV boasts a documentary about glass-blowing, a central element in this new film. As Peter Carey's writing suggests, some things are just fated to happen.