Englishman John Middleton Murry visits his publisher in France to approve a new edition of the works of his late wife Katherine Mansfield. Ever since her death in 1923, Katherine has haunted Murry’s imagination. Murry is startled when he finds that his publisher’s companion, Marie Taylor resembles Katherine and is also a New Zealander. At first fascinated by the old man, Marie grows angry when she learns Murry profited after Katherine’s death by publishing what she termed the “scraps” she asked him to destroy. Gradually she comes to see Murry as a self serving monster who tailored Mansfield’s work to the market and tailored their love story to his own needs.
“A contemporary feminist response to Mansfield and the spirit of this Newish World merge in the script, accentuating the corruption of the old, male and literary world in which the story is set. John Reid’s direction dramatises the issues in the material with flair and authority and serves his exceptional actors well in this haunting and thoughtful film” - Bill Gosden, Wellington Film Festival programme, 1985.