The whole film, in fact, with its loping pace and plaintive score, feels like a woefully polite, not to say British, take on a foreign horror; was there really no one, from the fierce new wave of German filmmakers, prepared to dramatize the Schlink?
"The last thing I wanted to do was a remake of a recent foreign horror thing," he said.
It would be damaged by enlargement's failure, which could easily produce foreign-policy horrors in the eastern Mediterranean or in the western Balkans.
When I was invited to go to Afghanistan a few weeks back, what came immediately to mind were scrambling images of a war-torn country that had seen many decades of war and foreign interference, the horrors of 9/11 and Bin Laden, the Taliban insurgents, the plight of women under Sharia law, and our own drawn out involvement there for the past 13 years.
Beryl had a horror of foreign food, preferring to stick with eggs, sausages and bacon.
This week, to the horror of foreign officials, his security chiefs proposed an increase in the number of polling stations.
I heard you have taken to playing an accordion in the Washington night, scaring foreign diplomats with your horror show.
Movies are not randomly assigned to their audiences; moviegoers usually choose whether to see a romantic comedy, a foreign film or a horror movie.
The Italian foreign ministry expressed "deep horror over the barbaric murder" and denounced "in the strongest manner the act of vile and senseless violence committed by extremists who are indifferent to the value of human life".
The foreign secretary felt "absolute horror" at the "brutal execution", he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
