Una

After this film was screened at the Toronto Film Festival today, an audience member asked director Andrews about the skill of lead actor Mendelsohn in his portrayal of such a deceitful and manipulative character. The host repeated the question without the adjectives but fortunately the question was answered as it was asked. Mr. Andrews noted that many audience members didn't see the "Ray" character in that fashion at all.

Indeed this ambiguity and its affect on Una is at the heart of this film as well as the play Blackbird upon which it is based. I generally am not happy when plays are translated into films but I found this adaptation to be quite the exception. The camera was able to extend the scope of the play to include scenes from the crucial events which occurred 15 years before the main confrontation which occupies most of the film.

A brilliant first film from director Andrews which will hopefully reach the wide audience it deserves.

Half a century after the well-known Lolita of Vladimir Nabokov subtly transformed into a cinematographic masterpiece by Stanley Kubrick, Una (2016) presents the ravages of a few-months romance between a man in his forties and a 13-years-old girl. This analysis is essentially revealed through the eyes of this teenager who has become a woman particularly disturbed and confused by this past as short as devastating.

Ben Mendelsohn and Rooney Mara play excellently, with an out-of-the-ordinary decency and an exemplary sobriety. In addition, the director Benedict Andrews successfully and coldly describes the havoc of an unusual relationship that challenges morality despite a 'consent' from the teen.

I have no idea how so many people thought this movie was deep or why it's so critically acclaimed .

Rooney Mara is stunning and has great screen presence , but there really is nothing more to this . It's slow , tedious to watch and the ending leaves you wanting to pull your hair out.

It seems like an attempt at justifying a child predators actions.

Una is uncomfortable and unnerving viewing, a film that will make your skin crawl on more than one occasion but thanks to some award worthy turns from its impressive lead performers, Benedict Andrews film is noteworthy as a character driven, dialogue heavy expose of some very heavy material.

Andrews film, which is based on David Harrower's esteemed play, keeps its stage play roots well and truly at the forefront as Rooney Mara's tormented Una takes a road trip to confront Ben Mendelsohn's factory foreman Peter, a man she knows from her childhood as Ray and a man with whom she had an illegal relationship with as a 13 year old teenage girl.

Largely taking place in Peter's workplace as he and Una discuss what happened, what could've been and what they feel, we get brief yet confronting flashbacks to Peter and Una's forbidden affiliation but mostly Andrews is focussing solely on Mara and Mendelsohn as the two competent performers work off each other too slowly tear away the layers to reveal their true motivations and inward thoughts.

Mara once again shows she is willing to be laid bare as an actress in another noteworthy turn while Mendelsohn, who has recently been cast more as a purely bad guy type role, gets one of his meatiest feature film roles yet as Peter.

His far from a likable or respectable person but Mendelsohn plays him to perfection, giving Peter just the right amount of humanity and against all the odds moments of compassion.

It's a role that could've fallen either way but the Aussie actor once more showcases why his regarded now as one of our all-time great exports. With Mara he shares a wonderful energy, while with the younger Una played by Ruby Stokes, Mendelsohn plays the role not predatory but more purely sad, a man consumed by feelings and urges that lead him to make his life's biggest mistake.

Una's greatest flaw as a film and ability too fully connect is strangely with the character of Una herself.

We feel her pain and understand the confusion and mental strain that has been bought down upon her but her reasoning behind confronting Peter and then her subsequent decisions from there are not that easy to understand. For a film that in many ways feels so realistic and raw, Una's consistently odd behaviour is hard to take, even when at times she is a heartbreakingly broken soul searching for closure on her past.

Final Say –

Not what you'd call an entertaining watch, thanks to some dark subject material and sombre to bleak tone, Una is an immaculately acted tale whose flawed characters don't always connect but thanks to Mara and Mendelsohn and Andrews carefully weighted hand behind-camera, this is a bleak drama that's a cut-above many similar productions.

3 ½ Ferris Wheel rides out of 5

My wife and I watched this at home on DVD from our public library.

Many viewers will feel uncomfortable with the subject, a 3-month affair between an adult man and his neighbor, a 13-yr-old girl. However it is done with enough sensitivity that everything is merely suggested, along with dialog that explains what happened.

Set and filmed in England, essentially 15 years later, now 28-yr-old Una looks up the man she had been intimate with, he had served his time and had changed his name, was now married and had a good job as a supervisor. She is intrusive, she is demanding, she had cared for the man and never got over what she considered abandonment when they decided to travel to Europe together.

The story plays out to show how the bad decisions made those years earlier had wrecked the life of the young girl into her adulthood, and how now is came back to haunt him. This is fiction but these types of stories really happen, we learn about them on the news all too often.

Ruby Stokes is really good as the young Una while Rooney Mara shines as the adult Una. Ben Mendelsohn is also very effective as the man, Ray, who changed his name to Peter. No pun intended, I suppose.