Carey Mulligan steals the show in this low-budget story, set in the small town Montana in the 1960s, about the challenges an independent and complex woman has fitting into her prescribed roles as wife (to a lost soul played by Jake Gyllenhaal) and mother to an increasingly confused teenage son. We view this family’s life for the most part through the eyes of the boy, and quite a troubling sight he sees. Slow moving but the story rarely flags. It’s all about the characters.
