A minor Turkish melodrama that's easy on the eye but not the watch, Gönül Yarasi follows ageing minicab driver Nazim (Sener Sen), who picks up more than just another passenger when he befriends nightclub singer Dünya (Meltem Cumbul). His grown-up kids think he's lost his marbles, but Nazim wants to help the beautiful young woman and her daughter escape her abusive ex-husband. Things aren't that simple, though, as Gönül Yarasi tries to live up to its melancholy English title: Lovelorn.

"The woman is a rascal and the man is a lunatic - don't get caught in between," warns Nazim's greying pal Atakan (Sümer Tilmaç) an old-time cabbie with plenty of experience on the clock. He's not the only one who's worried: Nazim's kids think the singer's a gold-digging floozy who's after their inheritance, while Dünya's violent ex-hubby (Timuçin Esen) just wants to get custody of their traumatised - and now mute - daughter.

"A LIGHTWEIGHT TALE"

Wife beating, rape and child abduction may sound awfully serious, but nothing's ever that terrible - or threatening - in this lightweight tale. Lathering the more threatening moments in soapsuds, Gönül Yarasi works best when playing up the comedy. Cantankerous old Atakan steals the show as a bellowing ex-heavy grown fat and old, leaving gifted Turkish actor Sener Sen to look as unconvinced by the tart-with-a-heart storyline as the rest of us. A confrontation over the family's inheritance and an undeveloped political subtext threaten to turn the movie sour yet, apart from a few mournful nightclub ballads, the lovelorn tears seem insincere.

In Turkish with English subtitles.