bwoy

If the ultimate result isn’t precisely perfect, it should serve to announce Young as a voice we ought to get to listen to more often.

For most of its running time — thanks to director Young’s visual rigor and the excellent performances of its leads — Bwoy keeps us in this cinematic fugue state, where reality only peeks through in brief flashes.

Circumstances that might have been static in less skilled hands are given tantalizing life by Young, the actors and the deft camerawork of cinematographer Ryan Balas.

Bwoy (Jamaican patois for boy), which largely plays like a stage-appropriate two-hander, is ultimately a surprising and cathartic, if often unsettling, film anchored by Rapp’s superb portrayal of a tortured soul desperate to connect. Brooks’ deftly enticing turn is also a standout.

Mr. Young, who also wrote the script, teases out the story in bits of coy hints and half-truths about a tragic accident, leaving too many questions unanswered.