For his first non-American picture, John Sayles has decamped to Ireland and appropriated the legend of the half-woman, half-seal selkie. It's the 40s and ten-year-old Fiona (Jeni Courtney) is sent to live with her grandparents Hugh and Tess Coneelly on the coast of Donegal. The whole family used to live on the near-by island of Roan Inish, where Fiona's mother is buried, and Fiona herself is more and more attracted to the island and its surrounding myths. She hears of how her great-grandfather was shipwrecked and carried to there by seals. How her own baby brother Jamie was stolen away by the sea in his cradle and even now sails about the island with a guard of seals. And how, generations before, Liam Coneelly took a selkie as his bride to live on Roan Inish. There will, inevitably, be a reconciliation of legend and history out on this island that is "nothing for us but sad memories."

The Secret of Roan Inish is astoundingly old-fashioned. In these days of animated blockbusters and effects-heavy kiddie entertainment it is almost shocking to return to the primitive level of magic on offer here. Most noticeably, the transformation between seal and woman is refreshingly achieved by the latter simply slipping off a heavy skin. It might entrance adults, but it's a tough call for kids brought up on overused, rubbery computer morphing.

Indeed, the problems with Sayles' picture spring not from its imagination and deliberate pacing, nor even the relative complexity of the early flashback structure. Nor would anyone would pick fault with veteran cinematographer Haskell Wexler's exquisite images. Mason Daring's score, on the other hand is more indicative. It's too often content to slip into finger-in-the-ear fiddle-dom, Sayles uncharacteristically satisfied with cliché.

Worse, though, the film relies on its young lead too heavily, and Courtney simply isn't up to the job. She looks the part, for sure, and does blank-faced innocence well, but wonder is a closed book. When marvellous things happen, talent deserts and the audience to a man sits willing her to get to the end of her longish speeches without forgetting anything important. Richard Sheridan as her cousin Eamon is better, and all of the adults, particularly Mick Lally as the grandfather, are fine if unremarkable.

Sayles is unquestionably one of the world's best, most honest film-makers, and there is no doubting the sincerity of his picture, but somewhere in the mid-Atlantic something has been lost. One wonders what he and his team might have done with some aspect of Irish history in place of tired old Oirish myth. Worse for him, however, will be finding an audience - adults, for who it might work, will flag it for a simple-minded kid-flick, and kiddies will be demanding nothing less than Independence Day this year. The remainder of us loyal Sayles-ites will just have to wait for the imminent - and reportedly excellent - Lone Star.