So when the film's moment of horror arrives, it's not with suspense but instead the sort of dully anticipatory inevitability that drains as much energy from the story as from the audience.

Hopefully, one of these days, Green will be bold enough to make a movie where nothing happens, where conversation is both his means and his end.

It's well-made. Searingly acted. Potent. And by the time it was over, its climax realized at the water's edge of insanity and grief, I felt beaten about the head with sticks.

One often feels with Green that he is on the verge of making an important film, of bringing poetry and realism together in an interesting manner.