Buttercup Bill

This intriguing, if ultimately self-indulgent movie is the debut feature from singer Tony Bennett's granddaughter, Remy, and co-writer/director Emilie Richard-Froozan, a dark psychological study of estranged friends forever connected by a dreadful secret. Dismayed that former lover Patrick (Evan Louison) failed to attend the funeral of a childhood friend who has took their own life, Pernilla (Remy Bennett) tracks him down to a Louisiana backwater where, even though Patrick has found God, they instantly resume the sexual power games that had once made them inseparable. Yet, despite this twisted bond, Pernilla and Patrick cannot take their relationship to the next level. Much vaunted as the first feature-length release from Sadie Frost and Emma Comley's Blonde to Black Pictures, the movie recalls old movies such as Otto Preminger's Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) and Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973), and riffs on personal experiences (Richard-Froozan had an invisible friend as a girl). The leads have a potent chemistry, which is reinforced by the tantalising flashbacks and the refusal to embrace linearity or the male gaze. But form too often takes precedence over content for this drama to engage entirely.