Britain’s premier literary throuple is the subject of this gamey, borderline-silly but watchably acted movie, which might have sat more comfortably as a three-part Sunday night TV drama. Robert Graves (Tom Hughes) is the poet traumatised and creatively blocked by his experiences in the great war, Nancy Nicholson (Laura Haddock) is his forward-thinking feminist wife, and Laura Riding (Dianna Agron) is the charismatic American writer who comes to live with them in a scandalous menage.
Laura entrances them both sexually and stirs Robert’s stagnant juices in every sense, leading him to invent an entire pagan aesthetic around his adoration for her as the “goddess” at the centre of his poetic being – with Nancy’s slightly wan permission. But Riding’s irreverent lustiness is to infuriate the fusty male circles of literary London, particularly TS Eliot (Christien Anholt) who is portrayed, perhaps justly, as an obnoxious hypocrite and bore.
