Watching this film is an intensely emotional experience.  The story kept me on the edge of my seat from its first scene to its end.  The venue is mostly Tahoe City at the north shore of Lake Tahoe, California.  The plot includes a family, blackmail, death and a gay relationship but not in the order you might expect.  The story line begins with a problem and worsens in a progression of rising action and crises. 

        Scott McGehee and David Siegel produced, wrote the screenplay and directed the film. It is based on a novel, The Blank Wall, by Elizabeth Holding, which was condensed for Ladies Home Journal in 1947.  Someone picked it up in Hollywood and made it a B&W movie in 1949 called Reckless Moment.  McGehee and Siegel found it and made the story more current.  Although, I m not sure I like any of these story titles, even the current one.

        Tilda Swinton, an English actress, plays Margaret Hall, the wife of an absent navy captain husband.  She is at home, raising their three children.  Goran Visnjic plays Alek Spera, the other key character in the film that comes on the scene later in the story.  His credits include a 1999 doctor role in the TV series ER, but I have not seen him in any other films.  The way he moves his head and some of his gestures remind me of James Dean. 

        However it's Swinton who carries the story and the film.  I found her performance remarkable.  It is her energy in the role that draws you into the character and raises this film well above average.  Her treatment of a conversation between the character Margaret and Alek provide the pivotal turning point in the story line.  It's a 2 minute scene that was filmed from dawn to dusk to get it perfect.  Swinton has a long history of acting, but I only know of one film she was in that I saw and that was Orlando.  She also had a small part in Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky, but I don't count Tom Cruise films (joke).

        I liked Jonathan Tucker s performance as her son, Beau.  He's a relatively new actor.  I also liked the camera work.  They took advantage of the Lake Tahoe scenery and there is one neat morph from the real lake to a ballet backdrop. 

        For me, the theme of this story was 'mother's love', but I m sure you'll come to your own conclusion.  It's a film I can recommend.