Er yeah, like I look like a Mad Hatter? And that seems to have been the response not only of some of those who saw it and reacted strongly, but some who starred in it, notably scientists and great thinkers who claim unwittingly that they have been made to look like they endorse its message.

What the Bleep Do We Know?! is made up of interviews with a myriad of American physicists and psychologists (although names and professions are not revealed until the closing credits). These interviews are clumsily edited to conclude - with the help of the kind of science usually found on the self-help shelves of bookshops and more than a whiff of New Age spirituality - that we can escape being the victims of circumstance by using positive thinking. My positive thinking had me wondering how long before the end?

Woven through this, and reflecting the argument being made, is a drama featuring Amanda (Marlee Matlin) that fails to convince. Amanda is a very troubled lady indeed: addicted to anxiety pills, dissatisfied with modern living, and generally glum. However, with the help of positive thinking she reaches enlightenment, which seems to involve a climax (every pun intended) in which Amanda lies in the bath drawing love hearts on her body in glittery eyeliner. Inspiring. I can't wait to break out the khol.

Now this is a film with friends. In this case the Ramtha School of Enlightenment, though the writers, directors and producers - Mark Vicente, Betsy Chasse and William Arntz - have been at pains to emphasise that though graduates of RSE, the film is not necessarily a 108 minute advertisement for it. RSE did not finance the film - oh and is not a cult, according to the US Supreme Court, to suggest so would be libellous. But that did not stop this viewer feeling that this was propaganda.

The film smacks of a certain kind of spirituality that skims over the real science and presents what appears to be a dumbed down guide to that favourite theory among those who should know better but failed to concentrate in maths at school - quantum physics - as well as that other fave among the non-Freudians, cognitive psychology. And just in case you feel uneasy about the arguments laid at your feet by this movie, some big words are thrown in with the effect of intimidating us novices.

If there was a convincing argument to be made by the filmmakers, it is camouflaged by the movie's repetitiv" and discordant flow. Presented as it is, What the Bleep ... only serves to give thinking a bad name.

It is not helped by the claims by some of the scientists featured that they were misrepresented. David Albert of Columbia University, one such scientist, was quoted on salon.com as saying: "I was edited in such a way as to completely suppress my actual views about the matters the movie discusses. I am, indeed, profoundly unsympathetic to attempts at linking quantum mechanics with consciousness."

What the Bleep... is likely to amuse British audiences familiar with the spot on spoofs of Chris "It's Paedogeddon" Morris. It has all the right ingredients for one of his satires - tacky graphics, nonsensical arguments, bombastic interviews and a ridiculous and oh so ever coy and slightly pretentious title. However, the sincerity of the film is chilling for cynical British viewers and highlights the more than Atlantic-sized gulf between the spirituality of the US and the European-style secularism of modern day Britain.

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