Earwig

Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s grim fairy tale is titled after a tiny, burrowing insect, and like its namesake it furiously digs its way into your consciousness.

“Earwig” teeters on the brink of ennui for most of its taxing two-hour running time, asking us to care about characters the film hasn’t really defined.

There’s something essential missing from Earwig and it’s not for want of inspiration or creativity. Hadžihalilović's latest is both too hazy to make a great adaptation and too focused to be genuinely dream-like.

The whole of Earwig operates with disorienting dream logic where nothing is what it seems, temporality is wobbly, settings are fluid and identities are confused.