Director Alice Troughton has a TV pedigree; she directed two of my favourite Doctor Who episodes – The Doctor’s Daughter and the iconic Midnight.

The Lesson looks to be her first feature film and it’s a solid, albeit sometimes prosaic character drama that might be about ego and control or perhaps revenge.

Aspiring writer Liam (Daryl McCormack) lands his dream job tutoring the son of famous author (and the subject of Liam’s thesis) JM Sinclair (an odiously twitchy Richard E Grant). His house is a grand and isolated manor with a silent but ever-present Butler, Ellis (Crispin Letts), a guest house for Liam and a clear divide between the family and ‘staff’.

Sinclair‘s wife Hélène (Julie Delpy) is an art curator so the traditional grandeur of the house is punctuated by neon and pespex art. Liam‘s charge, Bertie (Stephen McMillan), is sullen and a focus of pressure and disappointment for both parents. Liam must help him get into Oxford, not an easy feat.

The story is absorbing, especially when Delpy is in frame, and it gently bounces between mystery, thriller, drawing room drama and farce. There are secrets of course, and long-held resentments. The denouement seems slightly ridiculous, the subtext – great writers steal – repeated a few too many times to be subtle. The endings for each character though are exactly as we might want and the end credits roll with a small feeling of satisfaction.