Michael Winterbottom’s tough adaptation of Jim Thompson’s 1952 crime novel contains graphic depictions of violence.
This is a fascinating, psychologically complex and brutally unflinching gaze into amorality via the mind of Casey Affleck’s superbly creepy small town killer. Co-starring Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson, it’s an assault on the psyche that ranks with Winterbottom’s best work.
A key release on the summer calendar, and sure to stir up considerable controversy, it’s a film which invites us to peer into a deeply troubled soul, forcing to ask big and perhaps unanswerable questions about the things damaged people may do to themselves and others on the path to self-destruction.
While it’s undoubtedly one of the more viscerally explicit films of recent years, it’s very different to the voyeuristic, unmotivated violence against women seen in the work of other contemporary directors, asking us to consider why these things happen rather than simply being another piece of violent, senseless misanthropy. But be warned, it doesn’t give any easy answers.