Hideous Kinky

(Columbia TriStar)

Even without Titanic to hold her up, Kate Winslet proves herself one of the screen's most vivid presences in Gillies MacKinnon's story of a young mother with two very forthright young daughters who find themselves stranded in 1972 Marrakesh. Julia (Winslet) dreams of making a pilgrimage to a Sufi sheikh in a monastery in Algeria; easy-going six-year-old Lucy (Carrie Mullan) and dour eight-year-old Bea (Bella Riza) seem in some ways more mature than their mother. Toward the end the film drops its sometimes confusing but generally true-to-life formlessness for a hoary endangered-child scenario. Still, Hideous Kinky recovers the fragile state of childhood and vindicates its innocence.