KEY POINTS:
Herald Rating: * * * *
Cleverly conceived, coolly plotted and driven by two splendid performances, this second feature by indie writer-director Brougher (her first shown here) is hampered by a jarringly abrupt ending that suggests a failure of nerve. But it's an intriguing and engrossing drama by a woman who has a great control of tone and a fine touch with actors.
The story, into which we are pitched in a brilliantly headlong and economical opening sequence, is about the 16-year-old of the title (Tamblyn) who gives birth on a school skiing trip. Nobody else knew she was pregnant; maybe she didn't either. But when it emerges that her dead baby has water in its lungs, she is charged with murder.
The forensic psychologist assigned to assess her fitness to stand trial, Lydie Crane (Swinton), is in the final weeks of a pregnancy following a stillbirth. It's an idea that sounds dramatically contrived but, thanks to the intense work between the pair of them, the parallels in their lives assume a dramatic pungency that works very well.
As TV and the tabloids circle like sharks (Stephanie's story quickly becomes "The Ski Mom Case"), professional and client meet, backlit in an attic room that perfectly captures the detachment from the world they share in their separate and similar grief, and slowly their stories emerge.
As in the The Deep End, in which she played another kind of tormented mother, Swinton's faintly ghostly coolness works well for her here, making her as mysterious to us as she is to herself. The downside is that Hutton, as her distracted architect husband Paul, seems like a wraith: he's meant to be out of reach but he just seems underdrawn.
Still, that's a small matter compared to what Brougher nails dead centre: the seduction scene at a party that tells us so much more about Stephanie than how she got pregnant; the authenticity of the sad, uncertain dialogue between the two women; the precise depiction in just a few lines of Stephanie's parents - conservative Christians, stunned, loving and completely blind; it all adds up to an affecting and accomplished feature that announces a mature and exciting talent.
Cast: Tilda Swinton, Amber Tamblyn, Timothy Hutton, Novella Nelson
Director: Hilary Brougher Running time: 91 mins
Rating: M, content may disturb
Screening: Rialto
Verdict: Intense and brilliant drama about the relationship between a young woman charged with murder and the psychologist assigned to work with her
