Una * * * *

      Una is a difficult film and I greatly admire it for that.  It’s adapted for the screen by the author, David Harrower from his stage play Blackbird

      Like Elle, and The Diary of a Teenage Girl, it absolutely refuses to take the clear-cut road on issues we wish to see direct answers and response to.

Una asks Ray some hard questions

      It’s exhilarating drama in that it puts so much at stake. When you learn what happened to Una 10 years ago, you are happy to watch her take her vengeance on this day and in her own way.  But then you begin to wonder: What are the courts for? How many times must a man stand trial?  What is the penal system for if not to rehabilitate?  And is not this man thoroughly contrite and rehabilitated?

      Yet her irrational actions are also indication of her damage. What she is doing is the behaviour of someone who is not "over it" or had her "closure". The perpetrator might have worked it out, but this nemesis that visits him is of his own making.

      But then, the more disturbing  question arises, is Una really angry with Ray because he had sex with her when she was just thirteen, or because he broke her heart by leaving her?  Or does she still suffer from what made her vulnerable in the first place, confusing sex with love?

      It’s such a dangerous path to trod down and it would be so easy to simply dismiss this as an unwelcome apology for a sexual perpetrator, but it’s certainly not that.  For he receives a certain level of our sympathy only to make us question ourselves.

      It’s a powerful drama that will leave you thinking long after you’ve seen it.

      Aside from the outstanding performances from Ben Mendelsohn and Rooney Mara, full marks to director Benedict Andrews for taking it on.  It’s his first film and it has the strength of someone with much more experience than that.  The locations and the photography by Thimios Bakatakis (The Lobster) contribute perfectly to the dramatic situation.