The true story of a hermit who squatted on a patch of land in Hampstead and got adverse possession has been stretched into a thin rom com.

Emily (Diane Keaton) is an American widow financially struggling to live in her apartment in a well heeled part of Hampstead.

She meets grizzled Donald (Brendan Gleeson) a loner who has been living off the land in a makeshift cabin within some abandoned hospital grounds.

When the area where Donald resides is earmarked for development. Emily helps Donald out to fight the developers and they form an unlikely alliance.

Hampstead aims to be a quirky rom com with eccentric characters. It is a poorly developed screenplay based on a few true facts.

Keaton seems to be the variation of a stock character that she has been playing since Annie Hall. Gleeson is basically the gruff tramp. No one in the movie appears to be a genuine person apart from the character played by Phil Davis.

This is a poor mans' Lady In The Van, i.e. take a real-life incident, weave a fey plot of sorts around it, shoot on a real London location and wheel out the usual suspects, the television actors who go from one assignment to the next, hit their marks and neither bump into the furniture nor frighten the horses. Three days work in March, luvvie, right you are, another nice little earner, that's the new Aga sorted.That you, Tarquin? Can you give us a couple of days next month? Chichester? Well done, you. Never mind I'll give Roderick a bell. Break a leg. And thus you wind up with the likes of Lesley Manville, Jason Watkins and James Norton, who should have been insulted to be asked to phone in something Samuel West turned his nose up at. Okay, luvvies, this is the thing; we're bringing Diane Keaton in for the marquee, you're precious Primrose Hill types, you can do it in your sleep and there's a new kitchen in it. Luckily (for the producers) Camilla Long filed her last review for the Sunday times a week ago and is off to have a baby, otherwise ...

For a movie that's supposed to be all about charm, there was a surprising lack of it... the characters were well acted but there was no chemistry and the dialogue was stiff. The premise was good up until the last ten minutes which felt out of place and jolted the message.