Nancy

Smith-Cameron and Buscemi are both terrific, Buscemi for the fullness of his subtlety (so much going on in the looks and silences) and Smith-Cameron, for the depths of pain she can suggest, even when she plays a surface happiness.

"Nancy" possesses an alert, tense sense of atmosphere, but it winds up being as glum and inert as the protagonist herself.

Prepare yourself: it's not often that a movie presents us with a central character as unremittingly sad as this.

The movie's narrowly dramatic technique, with its curtly informational scenes, is matched by the emotional overdetermination of the images.

"Nancy" is an eccentric, pungent gift of a film about a woman without identity played by an actress without persona.

Nancy is a grim piece of work, but Choe's empathy for her protagonist gives the film its distinctive texture - woebegone, with flickers of both hope and dread.

The lifting of emotional barriers isn't just beautifully portrayed by the actors, but evoked by the arresting compositions of cinematographer Zoe White and an unsettling score from Peter Raeburn that grows more intense as the film wears on.

This is a tightly structured story that will leave you guessing about, and feeling for, the broken people at its center.

While it may not make you jump out of your seat in terror, Nancy will send chills down your spine in its own cold and calculating way.

Nancy is a slow burn - particularly for a film of this length - but its subtlety is its power: the movie isn't dazzling or loud like fireworks, but just like the glowing embers of a campfire, it can absolutely still burn.

What unfolds is an intimate exercise in acceptance and delusion, an exploration of grief and diminished hope conducted by a trio of highly skilled actors.

Nancy is an assured and genius debut from first-time feature director Christina Choe. Much like its protagonist, the film is an enigmatic and wholly original take.