Very slow-moving Victorian/Edwardian style melodrama about a high-strung Jodie Foster type who, after her father dies, begins to pay visits to a women's prison with the intention of helping the inmates. Instead, she -- on the rebound from an affair with a girlfriend who has recently married her brother -- falls head over heels for a young woman who claims to be clairvoyant but clearly is a charlatan. The two make plans to run away to Italy together. The first half of this TV movie plays like a Henry James story, such as TURN OF THE SCREW. The second half has a much more modern sensibility to it. And like any modern thriller, it includes a twist ending. As you can see, this was not my cup of tea, but I gave it a reasonably high score for pristine production values and solid acting by all involved. I suspect the average American will not be able to sit through the whole thing. Impressionable types of the British persuasion are, I suspect, likely to be its best audience. By the way, a quick-cut scene at the very beginning betrays the ending, so beware.

Having just read the book, I was really looking forward to the film adaptation.What a disappointment. The film felt extremely rushed, with no development of the characters. I did not for one minute believe the "affinity" between Selena and Margaret and so, consequently, felt nothing about the ending. Which did NOT do justice to the book. More time should have been spent showing the relationship between Margaret and her family members, for instance. And more emphasis on Selena's previous life and Peter Quick. And, lastly, more about that awful prison and what the women had to endure.Read the book if you want "the real deal" and to be suspended in excitement, suspense and terrific writing!

I am very disappointed that there where a lot of very low ratings for this movie by a good number of people. Personally I found that the movie was very captivating, and it made me want to understand better what was exactly happening all along. The costumes where marvelous, and the twist at the end (although I expected something similar, because it almost always happens in these kind of movies) was very good. It is a very good drama, however only for people that know how to appreciate it. People who like a lot of action, and not understanding will not appreciate it as much.

I decided to stay up and watch Affinity due to being " a gripping dramatisation" and "full of feints and foreboding" as promised by this weeks RadioTimes Magazine....I can say without hesitation that I was not disappointed.The story was powerful and full of human emotion. I felt that Zoe Tapper who plays the women's prison inmate/spiritualist Selina Dawes and Anna Madeley as upper-class lady Magaret who together form a bond of strange depths are absolutely fantastic as their characters. Full of emotion, foreboding and uncertainty until the very end. Nothing can prepare you for the final twist.I have never read the book unlike the previous reviewer and to be honest I am not sure I am going to now because I would not want it to change the impression I was left with following the film....so powerful I dreamt of it the same night.Watch it or you really are missing out.Richard