But director Minghella, ever the non-sentimental Briton, crafts a sparer, more literate, more thought-provoking tale of love, loss and obsession.

It is also more adult, although not in the graphic sense. Rather, it is about people who are a little older - thirtysomething rather than twentysomething and a little more mature. Their love is as much based on companionship and compassion as passion.

Juliet Stevenson plays a language translator who outwardly seems normal and stable, but who inwardly is still distraught by the death of her lover, a cellist named Jamie, who died during a freak medical accident.

She is seething with unresolved rage both at him for leaving her, even though he couldn't help it, and at herself for not being able to get on with her life.

She takes quirky comfort in believing that her departed lover (Alan Rickman) watches over her from his ghostly plane, playing duets with her in her mind and reminding her to lock the back door for safety before she goes to bed.

But is he really a ghost or has she driven herself mad through loneliness? Is she so desperate and obsessed that she has conjured him up only in her mind?

Only when she visits her analyst can she try to sort things out logically. Even then, she isn't sure she wants to let him go. She is so unhappy without him in body, she can't imagine how awful it would be to be without him in spirit, too.

In filmmaker Minghella's poignant view, ghostly Jamie may have to take initiative, make the sacrifice and teach her - slyly, of course - to reopen her heart to another man (Michael Maloney), so she can let the past go.

Stevenson is a classically trained British actress virtually unknown in this country except for occasional BBC imports, such as Freud, Out of Love and Living With Dinosaurs.

She has a smart crispness to her performance; she is pert without being flip and sensitive without being soppy as her character tries to recapture, even re-create the good times she had with her cellist. But when she breaks down, her sobs are wrenching; she can virtually make the audience feel her pain.

More familiar here is Rickman, who plays the good-hearted if a bit arrogant ghost who is still embarrassed at the inglorious way he died. Rickman first came to American attention as the eloquent and elegant villain of Die Hard and can currently be seen camping it up hilariously as the irredeemably evil Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

Here, the bass-voiced actor delivers a rare turn as a good guy and it takes a bit of getting used to. His familiar sneer has been turned up in an unexpectedly warm smile, and even he seems a bit bored by the propriety.