Rebecca Hall convincingly portrays a successful business executive who begins to get glimpses of the man who psychologically tortured and abused her when she was a young woman. Tim Roth plays this sicko and does it well.
Hall's character is stressed both by her job and by her overprotected daughter leaving for college. She sees her vulnerable younger self both in her daughter and in a young intern at work who asks her advice about a bad relationship. And Hall's character has never really dealt with what happened to her years before.
So, from the start, you wonder, are these new sightings of Roth real, or is she having a psychotic breakdown? The tension between these two alternatives provides the tension of the movie.
The problem is, eventually the filmmaker has to choose, and neither choice can lead to an ending that is both interesting and credible. (I suppose the occasional filmmaker never does choose, which is by far the worst decision.)
On the whole, this is not my kind of film, but it is pretty well done.
Hall's character is stressed both by her job and by her overprotected daughter leaving for college. She sees her vulnerable younger self both in her daughter and in a young intern at work who asks her advice about a bad relationship. And Hall's character has never really dealt with what happened to her years before.
So, from the start, you wonder, are these new sightings of Roth real, or is she having a psychotic breakdown? The tension between these two alternatives provides the tension of the movie.
The problem is, eventually the filmmaker has to choose, and neither choice can lead to an ending that is both interesting and credible. (I suppose the occasional filmmaker never does choose, which is by far the worst decision.)
On the whole, this is not my kind of film, but it is pretty well done.