FX's stunning "Black Narcissus" remake leaves the viewer in a state of unrequited desire - Salon

Frustratingly this also is this adaptation's downfall in an era in which the audience expects a series to follow through on flirtations teased early on in a three-hour series that behaves like an independent movie.

Don't let the good looks fool you though, a trick played upon us by casting Gemma Arterton as Sister Clodagh, a young Anglican nun living in India when it was still under British rule.

Faith, Clodagh exhibits the most steadfast devotion, and takes on the task given to her by her superior Mother Dorothea (Dame Diana Rigg in one of her final roles before her death) to open a convent school in a remote village in the Himalayas called Mopu.

And despite assembling a crack group of hardy nuns to get the place up and running, including the ever-useful Sister Briony (Rosie Cavaliero), the convent's ablest gardener Sister Philippa (Karen Bryson), cheerful schoolteacher Sister Blanche (Patsy Ferran) and the convent's prickly youngest, Sister Ruth (Aisling Franciosi), it quickly becomes evident that many forces are allied against Clodagh.

The building chosen for the new convent was once a palace for the local ruler's concubines, and along with all the erotic art splashed across the walls, the place is clearly haunted by a tragic event that occurred in the past.

The question is whether the viewer is in the mood to weigh what exactly "Black Narcissus" is getting at, and whether its dearth of relevance even matters.

And that leaves the story itself which, again, is an orientalist tale that is definitely of a time and place and its own thing and could have benefitted from artistic tinkering beyond wondering whether this is supposed to be a ghost story or a tale about the madness that grows out of suppressed desire?

"Black Narcissus" makes a better argument for that second part but not a strong enough one to make its case, leading us back to that in-between area of frustration and questioning: Is this a ghost story?