Una

Una is a messy story told tidily - which is to say, slightly bloodlessly. It's controversial material, certainly - the story of a woman who re-encounters the man who, when she was 13, seduced and then abandoned her - and the confrontation between him, post-prison reintegrating his life and her, still damaged by what happened so many years ago. And the casting is spot-on - Ben Mendehlson adds to his considerable recent repertoire of creeps, albiet here a somewhat shameful creep, and Rooney Mara has intensity to burn as the raw-nerved Una.

But in the end, Benedict Andrews' direction and David Harrower's script are both just that little bit too bloodless. Locations feel that little bit too clean and polite (up until the moment when they are symbolically messed up), and the encounter never quite cuts as deep as it feels like it should. Harrower's script wants to play our sympathies on a knife end between the two of them, as that makes for good dramatic suspense, but ... that leads to a script that never quite has convictions or drive, more a tendency to talk around than get deep inside the feelings and characters. It feels too much like a story, something constructed, an excercise, rather than something strongly and brutally pulled from the soul. And with material this close to the edge, playing it academic is playing it safe and, ultimately, you're left with a film that feels bloodless.