AT 84, Richard Attenborough is still directing. Eight years after Grey Owl failed to find an audience, he tries again with a defiantly old-fashioned love story that jumps back and forth between time and place.

But despite a stellar cast and having its heart in the right place, Closing The Ring never takes off.

In 1940s Michigan, the life of young Ethel Ann (The OC's Mischa Barton) is tied up with three male friends whose lives change when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbour and the trio are called to war. Ethel secretly marries one of them, Teddy, before he reports for duty. He doesn't come back. Half a century later his wedding ring is found by a young Belfast boy which triggers off a series of events that gradually reveal the truth of what happened to the trio of Americans when they were based in Northern Ireland.

The Troubles too have a role to play as Ethel-Ann (played in old age by Shirley MacLaine) travels to Northern Ireland with elderly Jack (Christopher Plummer), one of survivors of the trio of airmen.

Peter Woodward's screenplay, inspired by the real life discovery of an airman's wedding ring, offers plenty of dramatics for the cast, but the constant going back and forth in time becomes wearing and the stolid direction doesn't help.

Not perhaps Attenborough's finest hour, although it's good to see him still working.

Stars: Shirley MacLaine, Christopher Plummer, Mischa Barton, Stephen Amell, Neve Campbell, Pete Postlethwaite, Brenda Fricker, Gregory Smith, Martin McCann
Running time: 118 mins
Rating: Two stars