Catch Me Daddy

In this wildly promising debut feature from the 36-year-old British filmmaker Daniel Wolfe, the landscape becomes a kind of holy sanctuary for two young lovers fleeing a murderous plot.

Catch Me Daddy feels authentic and informed, but wears its research lightly and prefers to thrust us into the atmosphere of the moment rather than offer too much background or tie things up neatly.

Blending the mythical resonances of The Searchers with lyricism and bristly realism, Wolfe’s harrowing, haunting dispatch from Brit-cinema’s undergrowth is strong meat: emphatic evidence of a bold talent’s arrival.

It's an ambitious attempt to meld the kind of social realism that made the names of Andrea Arnold and Clio Barnard with a stripped-down genre thriller, an attempt that's only moderately successful, though it suggests Wolfe is a filmmaker of real promise.

Over the long haul, the Wolfe brother never quite provide enough psychological and emotional ballast to flesh out their complex, conflicted characters. But these are minor flaws in an otherwise confident, gripping, highly charged debut.

Opinions will divide as to the film's final moments: some may find it all too much, and the film does not quite digest everything it wants to encompass. But there an energy and boldness in the debut work from Daniel Wolfe.

The film plods from one gruesome moment to the next, as if its mere aversion to optimism constitutes a philosophy.