Film: Energised caper comes unstuck

Reviewed: Lay the Favourite

**Directed by Stephen Frears**

**Nationwide, cert 15A**

**Rating:** 2/5

Having never knowingly made the same film twice in a 40-year career, British director Stephen Frears follows his middle-England bedroom farce Tamara Drewe with this flashy adaptation of Beth Raymer's 2010 memoir **Lay the Favourite**, a soft-boiled true-crime caper that leaps out of the gate but fades badly in the final furlong.

With her short shorts, big hair and squeaky ...