Julia

AroView: Gutsy, dynamic melodrama propelled by a full-tilt performance from Tilda Swinton as a loose cannon alcoholic who becomes embroiled in child-napping and extortion after a chance encounter at an AA meeting.

Keeping pace with Swinton’s nervous energy and her character’s impulsive desperation, the ambitious plot veers and swerves in and out of peril as she and her captive head for self-destruction (or perhaps redemption) over the Mexican border for the climactic act. The Tex-Mex flavour, dramatic urgency and sense of fatalism recalls the work of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (AMORES PERROS, BABEL) - let’s hope the talented French director of DREAMLIFE OF ANGELS doesn’t wait another ten years to produce a follow-up.