After her marriage splits up, Anna (Rampling) tres to get her life on track as a mature single woman while living with her single-mum daughter (Atwell). At a speed-dating night, Anna meets George (Brown), who later turns up dead. Detective Bernie (Byrne) connects Anna to the death and quietly gets to know her without revealing his identity or his agenda. Meanwhile, Bernie's colleague Kevin (Marsan) unearths evidence pointing to a mother and son (May and Deacon). Then Anna starts to remember.

The film has an extremely eerie tone, as filmmaker Southcombe generates the vibe of a horror movie even when nothing particularly nasty is happening on screen. So we know there's something awful going on here long before we actually have even a hint of information. And he dribbles it to us so slowly that we begin to lose interest in the plot long before it reaches its heightened resolution.

Rampling is so natural that we feel almost invasive watching her, especially in some jarringly embarrassing moments. Her interaction with Atwell and Byrne is sometimes gentle and at other times chilling, mainly because it seems like even she doesn't know what she's up to. So discovering the truth is just as shocking for her as it is for us. Although how Bernie missed any of this is a bit contrived, since it's right there for a colleague to spot later on.

In other words, the whole movie is a bit of a cheat, barely holding together as the filmmaker lies to us then pulls the rug out. Although we can see all of this coming. And the film's slow, lazy pacing doesn't help at all, giving us the time to see all of the cracks in the premise and the clanking shifts in the plot. If the actors weren't so good, this would be difficult to watch. But Rampling never puts a foot wrong, and Byrne has a haunted quality that keeps us gripped.

themes, language, violence, sexuality

1.Oct.12