Danny, who does tattoos

Danny (Douglas Henshall) and Hannah (Catherine McCormack) are briefly married

If any one character is at the centre of This Year’s Love, it is Danny, who sets events in motion by terminating his marriage to Hannah, then bounces from relationship to relationship - from Marey to Sophie - before beginning the open-ended process of reconciliation with Hannah on which the film ends. Danny is the epitome of the Camden crowd: a nice enough guy with an unusual career - he is a not very successful tattoo artist - who makes all the wrong decisions, especially when his (very short) fuse has burned out.

Danny is played by Douglas Henshall, who has become one of the most familiar faces on British television, most recently as the male lead in the controversial medical series Psychos. His film roles include the low-budget comedy Fast Food, If Only (aka The Man With Rain in His Shoes), and fellow Scottish actor Peter Mullan’s directorial debut, Orphans.

Danny the tattoist applies a profesional hand to Marey’s bum

“For Danny,” says Henshall, “the film deals with his trying to lose his sexual jealousy, insecurity, paranoia and overall lack of trust that stems from losing Hannah. To make it worse, he’s still in love with her, and that just adds another layer of complicated emotions for him to deal with.

“The story is based around a group of people in their late 20s, but I think someone of just about any age would connect with it: most people do go in and out of relationships before they meet the person they think they’re supposed to be with.

“I really liked the story with all the humour and humanity it contained, and that nice kind of circular thing where everyone bumps into everyone else. And I also liked the way that everything hasn’t been tied up in a pink ribbon at the end - it’s left open, but still hopeful.”

Cameron is in thrall to his good looks: he can charm almost any girl who is halfway open to being charmed, but he’s never going to stick around long enough to have a relationship. He is the first to pick up Hannah (drunk, in the pub, on her wedding night), but is not ready to be domesticated by her. He probably thinks he is doing Marey a favour by sleeping with her - and, as a result, gets his come-uppance. But it is Sophie who really hurts him. For the record, Cameron is an artist who paints exact copies of whatever appeals to him and (sometimes) sells them at auction.

Cameron is played by Dougray Scott, a young Scottish actor poised on the brink of stardom. His first high-profile role was in Gillies MacKinnon’s Regeneration, but then he went to Hollywood to play Prince Charming in the Cinderella story, Ever After, and followed up This Year’s Love with a stint in Mission: Impossible 2. As noted in this issue’s ‘Hollywood Notes’, his next Hollywood role will be as the long-clawed Wolverine in The X-Men.

“Cameron is an artist and lives his life like one of his heroes, Egon Schiele,” says Scott. “He spends his time looking at lonely hearts columns and meeting three or four women a week, and has no qualms about dumping them because he believes he’s going to die young.

“The thing about artists is the ‘organised’ mess: their life is very structured and planned out. It looks like it’s haphazard, but it takes years to make a studio look that messy! And Hannah comes along and sweeps the floor and Cameron’s thinking, ‘You don’t know how long it took me to make it look like that!’

“The whole film is about people deconstructing their lives and putting the pieces back and trying to find some sort of happiness in life - which is really what everyone’s lives are about. There are people like that all over the world.”

Hannah is the most straightforward and vulnerable of the main characters. She is devastated when her wedding comes to an abrupt halt, gets drunk, ends up in bed with Cameron but spends most of the night throwing up in the bathroom. Her relationship with Liam never really gets started. She is sufficiently open to experience to end up in bed with Alice. But the reconciliation with Danny - when he shows up at her supermarket checkout and declares his love in front of all the other shoppers - is one of the film’s most touching moments.

Hannah is played by Catherine McCormack, whose first major film role was as William Wallace’s murdered sweetheart in Braveheart. She also had a role in David Leland’s wartime drama, Land Girls. But it was while she was filming Dancing at Lughnasa with Kathy Burke (not to mention Meryl Streep) that Burke suggested her to director Kane for This Year’s Love.

“I didn’t really base Hannah on anyone but me,” admits McCormack. “I let my madder side come out and had a laugh with it. There are some very dark moments in the film, though: it’s about people’s breakdowns and what happens to them at certain times of their lives.

“The wedding is great: it’s a brilliant opener with some wonderful scenes. It’s a bit like Strictly Ballroom - OTT costumes and larger than life. “I wanted to be part of the film because I hadn’t done comedy and I think I’m more suited to playing character roles than the costume-drama romantic parts I’ve played until now.

“David came over to Ireland where we were filming Dancing at Lughnasa because he’d written one of the parts for Kathy, and she said that he should get me to do a part. She thought I was a bit barmy.”

Alice is the only character in This Year’s Love who has only one relationship: with Hannah. But she is just like the others in another respect: it doesn’t last.

Alice is played by Emily Woof, one of the more experienced cast members, who made her film debut opposite Rufus Sewell in The Woodlanders; was Robert Carlyle’s ex-wife in The Full Monty; and played Ewan McGregor’s new partner in Velvet Goldmine. Since This Year’s Love, she has starred in Aussie biopic Passion, which was featured in our last issue.

“Alice is really the only truly positive one of all the characters - positive about who and what she wants,” says Woof. “She comes into the film halfway through and starts to have a relationship with Hannah. It then all peters out because of Liam, so she sort of comes in and breezes out again.

“The whole film is very funky, funny, fresh and... I can’t think of any more words beginning with ‘F’ except a rude one that doesn’t apply.”

Entertainment Film Distributors present a Kismet Film production in association with the Scottish Arts Council National Lottery Fund. Prod: Michele Camarda; Exec prod: Nigel Green; Dir/Scr: David Kane; Ph: Robert Alazraki; Prod des: Sarah Greenwood; Cost des: Jill Taylor; Ed: Sean Barton; Mus: Simon Boswell. With Kathy Burke (Marey), Jennifer Ehle (Sophie), Ian Hart (Liam), Douglas Henshall (Danny), Catherine McCormack (Hannah), Dougray Scott (Cameron), Emily Woof (Alice). International distribution: Good