An acclaimed Australian screenwriter, Laura Jones first garnered attention with "High Tide" (1987, directed by Gillian Armstrong), an original and atmospheric character study of a troubled woman who is reunited with the daughter she gave up for adoption. The writer quickly became noted for her adaptations of novels with strong female characters at the center of the story. While her feminist slant to the material she writes has met with some critical opprobrium (chiefly "The Portrait of a Lady" 1996 and "A Thousand Acres" 1997), in general, Jones has proven to be expert at condensing unwieldy