A sick-room torpor hangs heavily about this masterfully controlled, elegantly composed movie by Tom Kalin.

While the pace occasionally flags and there are times when we wonder where Kalin is leading us, he maintains a pervasive sense of dread and unease throughout that makes the chilling climax seem both shocking and inevitable.

Savage Grace is a movie that badly wants to shock you. The only thing that might raise an eyebrow here, however, is the shocking rate at which everyone lights up a cigarette every five minutes.

The film doesn't resonate with much or any of this, to its cost. It is too dry, too isolating, too passive. All in all, the makers of Savage Grace settled for far too little.