Back Roads

Given the outlandishness of the material here, it would have been easy to start getting unwanted laughs in the second half of the film, but Pettyfer and his actors find the truth in it, even in a very long and demanding take where Harley confronts his mother in prison.

It now takes more than it once did to shock us, and Back Roads wants to do just that, but the effect, in this case, is more audacious than it is convincing.

While Back Roads doesn't live up to its considerable dramatic and thematic ambitions, it provides a strong opportunity for its filmmaker/star to stretch his dramatic muscles in the lead role.

If you and the film find yourself on the same wavelength, there is a fair amount here to like. Like many actors moving behind the camera, Pettyfer may err a bit too much on the side of loud performances, but cinematographer Jarin Blaschke (The Witch) adds some much-needed desperation to these characterizations through his unsentimental depiction of rural Pennsylvania.

Though there’s an abiding sensitivity in the often-noirish approach to the story’s many traumas and its characters’ flailing attempts at coping, as a whole it’s something of a tonal mess.

Whatever it wants to say about abuse, its mental, social and sexual impact on its victims, however “daring” it aims to be, Back Roads loses in its pursuit of the sordid.

Not all tearful screaming sessions translate well from the page to the screen, and this is an excruciating example of overkill.