Penance

There is no denying the drama of this instant plunge into temptation, to the accompaniment of an ominous musical soundtrack that never ends. There is no missing, either, the absence of developed characters (musculature aside)—a product of writing wholly lacking in ambition (the film is based on a novel by Kate O’Riordan). For all that, a stubbornly working engine drives this tale, thanks to which it becomes, in its own quietly suffocating way, drama that sustains suspense.

As the suspenseful psychological thriller it purports to be, Penance is a bit slack. ... But, despite all this, it is basically fit for purpose. Which is mainly, at this point in the subgenre’s development, still to work out how a mass audience feels about sex-swapped, intergenerational banging (I mean, romance … I mean banging) and how long writers and makers have before they need to start adding real meat, real characters and real plots, because the frisson of novelty has worn off.