Alpha

Through its complex structure, formed of different timelines and split realities, uncanny dreams and blurred memories, “Alpha” viscerally teases out the binds of love and trauma.

Alpha is as thorny as her previous two features, but there’s something lonely and longing here too.

As Alpha’s family becomes increasingly isolated, the film’s ambition widens. Though the rhythms of this can take some getting used to, the resulting emotional payoff is more than worth your patience.

The possibility of relating to the characters is constantly hindered by the struggle to make sense of the story’s messily sketched dystopia.

One film too late for a sophomore slump, Alpha feeds on its own potential, turning a possibly brilliant collection of ideas into one so muddy it’s hard to say exactly what any of them connote. But the feeling of having to trudge through is there all the same, and over two hours is a long trudge.

It’s painful to watch such talents pour so much into roles that are fairly common, if not clichéd by American indie standards.

The madly, bafflingly overwrought and humourless storytelling can’t overcome the fact that everything here is frankly unpersuasive and tedious. Every line, every scene, has the emoting dial turned up to 11 and yet feels redundant.