Picturenose

Return to sender…
Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy, for the uninitiated) is Joanna Mills, a successful trucking company rep who takes a business drive from her home in St. Louis to the rural area of Texas where she grew up. A perilously-close-to-scary prologue has already set the scene - something creepy happened to her at a carnival when she was a young girl and, not long after she arrives, shock-horror flashbacks begin to plague her.

Focusing on a bar in the small town of La Salle, the visions drive Joanna to investigate further but, before she can, a more pressing problem arrives in the guise of her rough ex-boyfriend/competitive co-worker Kurt (Adam Scott). Thankfully, Terry (Peter O’Brien) is on hand to rescue her, and then, lo and behold, become a focal point of Joanna’s investigation. Are hers and Terry’s histories entwined, in ways they can’t imagine, etc?

Gellar is competent in her most adult role to date, and she and O’Brien (an Australian actor who’s effortlessly convincing as a down-home Texan) do good work with characters that don’t really have too much to do.

Mild paranormal intrigue is about as good as this gets, though director Asif Kapadia (The Warrior (2001)) has at least imbued proceedings with an evocative rural southwest atmosphere, thanks to Roman Osin’s widescreen photography (which frequently isolates Joanna at the edges of the frame) and Therese DePrez’s gritty and lived-in production design.

A pity that the narrative isn’t equally engaging - Adam Sussman’s script seems dotted with gaps, and what’s left is only occasionally engaging.

85 mins.