RENOWNED novelist Gabriel Garcma Marquez famously noted: "The heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good; and thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burdens of the past."

His pithy words would be little comfort to tortured artist Ben (Colin Firth), who wakes from a coma to learn that he has been involved in a freak car accident; his wife Elisa (Naomie Harris) didn't survive the impact.

Discharged from hospital a few weeks later, Ben struggles to come to terms with his grief by visiting the psychiatrist who counselled him through his parents' death.

He also moves into a new apartment, where he is befriended by a beautiful neighbour, Charlotte (Mena Suvari).

She takes Ben to a local psychic (Brenda Fricker) who makes a startling proclamation: his wife is alive.

Fractured memories of the past begin to haunt Ben and he experiences nightmarish visions of the accident, including his abandonment of his Elisa at the roadside, until he is unable to sift illusion from reality.

His good friend Tommy (Tommy Flanagan) tries to help Ben in his hour of need, to no avail.

As Ben's mental state deteriorates, he finds himself hounded by a tenacious police detective (Kenneth Cranham) investigating the murder of famous pop star Lauren Paris, whose face adorns posters plastered all over London.

Could Ben's subconscious be protecting him from an unspeakable truth: that he is the killer?

Trauma is an effective psychological thriller, cloaked in an air of menace by Marc Evans' virtuoso direction.

The Welsh filmmaker plays cleverly with shadows and light, combining footage from CCTV cameras to affect a blitzkrieg of disquieting images that echo the unrest in Ben's mind.

Firth certainly elicits sympathy in the title role but he doesn't display the acting mettle necessary to plumb the emotional depths of his character.

His performance merely hints at the anguish and confusion threatening to explode from within Ben, as the character retreats into a delusional world of grief, loneliness and denial.

Suvari seems to have been cast purely to ensure the film's release on the other side of the Atlantic. She brings little to the picture.

Sadly, the plot runs out of steam well before the 94 minutes are up, disintegrating into utter nonsense for the damp squib of a final twist.