Faults

A once-famous expert on mind control and cults, now in debt and out of fashion, takes a job: to deprogramme a family's daughter over a few days in a motel room. Once he is alone with her, the direction of the negotiation begins to change. The film is not interested in critiquing cults. It is interested in who is convincing whom: the expert knows belief systems and his own life has collapsed, and she sees it at once. As it goes on, the session turns from therapy into a contest of power. The form is single-location suspense: a motel room, two performers, long conversations. The tone moves between black comedy and discomfort. It is Riley Stearns's first feature, and his particular style, fixed frames and deliberately flat dialogue, starts here. Leland Orser plays the expert and Mary Elizabeth Winstead the daughter. Who it is for: viewers who like small psychological thrillers and independents with an odd tone. Who it is not for: anyone who needs a clear answer. The film never fully explains what happened, and that ambiguity is not for everyone.