Directed by Niall MacCormick. Starring Julia Ormond, Felicity Jones, Sebastian Koch, Jessica Brown Findlay, Peter Vaughan 15A cert, IMC Dún Laoghaire, Dublin; Wexford Omniplex, 90 min

A SOOTHING aura of competence hangs over this remarkably unremarkable coming-of-age comedy, set in a dull English seaside resort. Somehow or other, Niall MacCormick, an experienced TV director, has persuaded a very decent cast to make the most of a script that seems stranded halfway through a second draft.

Jessica Brown Findlay, currently gracing Downton Abbey,stars as a free-spirited teenager who takes a job cleaning at a mid-market hotel. Sebastian Koch, star of The Lives of Others, plays the manager, a blocked author with whom she begins an uncomfortable romance. Julia Ormond is the letch's shrewish wife. The increasingly unavoidable (and good, to be fair) Felicity Jones plays the couple's nice daughter.

Albatrossis never exactly embarrassing. It's always easy on the eye. You will, however, wait in vain for a decent belly-laugh.

Filmed largely on the Isle of Man, scored to infuriatingly jaunty chords, the picture sets out to teach the characters various predictable lessons. Koch needs to pull himself together and stop procrastinating about his supposed great work. Brown Findlay needs to recognise her own potential and stop behaving so aimlessly. Jones needs to get a grown-up haircut.

There are a few glaring bum notes. During the sequence where Jones visits Oxford, the film- makers – at home to the obvious – play Oxford Commaby Vampire Weekend and include some appallingly broad caricatures of archetypal tweedy toffs. But, for the most part, Albatrossticks along with the unthreatening adequacy you expect from canned peas or freeze-dried coffee.

The only real surprise is that they don’t play a certain Fleetwood Mac instrumental over the closing credits.