Eva Husson’s controversy-courting debut is neither as lewdly subversive or as raucously debauched as its provocative title.
In Felix Thompson’s film, harsh punishments are dished out in a way that jolts the material away from coming-of-age cliché.
It sketches an imperiled family worth caring about, but any goodwill is soon weathered by wave after wave of contrivance.
Once the wave hits, everything that follows is submerged by the blatant bid for an international audience and the crowd-pleasing clichés the film emulates almost too well.
Harsh punishments are dished out in a way that jolts the material away from coming-of-age cliché.
Like its protagonist, this disquieting debut slips into a state of sulfurous rage from which it never relaxes.
It’s a total turn-off that’s neither as lewdly subversive or as raucously debauched as its provocative title.
The film’s inferno of horrors are undoubtedly visceral, but psychologically implosive rather than entrails-exploding.
Riley Stearns’s film obliquely addresses its narrative mysteries through the conversational cracks of two people in enforced proximity.
Slowly, the powerful message of heart and soul winning out over an impaired body and over-thinking mind develops into the core drama of this otherwise modest doc.