The World Made Straight

Jeremy Irvine is the sympathetic focus, but it’s Noah Wyle who holds the movie together, as a former teacher who lost his job through a malicious student’s prank. Smart, self-possessed and capable, this fellow nonetheless carries himself with an awareness of some underlying guilt.

Though the film, based on a Ron Rash novel, doesn’t quite deliver on all its grim portents, debut director David Burris creates a neo-Faulknerian atmosphere of indelible sin in a story that rises above cliché. As Wyle’s character puts it, “The South was never one thing.”

The movie finally feels more manufactured than organic, a travelogue of portent, complete with plangent guitars and peopled by characters from the backwoods playbook.

The film's saving grace is its fine performances.

The finale, in which blood rivalries are redressed in an absurdly literal manner, fatally strains credulity.

For all the good intentions and native hands behind the camera, The World Made Straight never seems particularly credible or convincing as a fresh look at regional history.

The moody lighting and the ubiquity of deciduous trees provide a canvas for bracing drama, but the film undoes itself by its desire to impart revelatory history lessons.