Una

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

Conventional genre movies work their magic almost entirely through manipulating stereotypes. But many powerful movies work in reverse: they deconstruct stereotypes to challenge our boundary perceptions. Themes like feminism, racism and nationalism, are regularly pulled apart to see what makes them tick. In recent years, child sexual abuse has been in the spotlight and it is overwhelmingly treated as a moral absolute. However, the film Una (2016) challenges the norm by exploring ambivalences in a case of blatant abuse. In doing so, it places the audience squarely on the judge's bench. Adapted from the acclaimed 2005 stage play Blackbird, this tense drama-thriller explores the moral ambiguities of a criminal act that occurred 15 years ago between 40-year old Ray (Ben Mendelsohn) and 13-year old Una (Mara Rooney). The emotionally immature Ray was obsessed with the lonely and precocious Una over a three-month relationship before having 'consensual' sex with her. By chance, the incident was discovered and he spent four years in jail. Since then he changed his name and has tried to restore his life. Meanwhile Una's world spiralled into an emotional void. Now 28, she has tracked him down and unexpectedly confronts him at the factory where he works. Instead of attacking him for the abuse, she demands to know why he abandoned her after their one night together. They continue talking beyond the factory's closing time, then she tricks another employee to take her to Ray's home where his girlfriend is hosting a party. At this point, the intensity of the factory scenes becomes diluted and the sparring inconclusive. This is an explosive mix of issues, personality and circumstance. The film consists mostly of their verbal sparring about the illegal 'affair' with dialogue ranging from hysterical, passionate to icy cool within an industrial setting that is claustrophobic and alienating. It is beyond Ray's emotional capacity to understand what Una wants, while she vacillates between wanting to restore her juvenile obsession with him and wanting to see him wallow in guilt for his crime. Every time we feel contempt for him, we see a piece of the emotional puzzle indicating human weakness but not evil. Every time we admire Una's determination to hold Ray to account, we see a glimpse of her complicity and manipulation. Mara Rooney and Ben Mendelsohn fill their characters with confusion and remorse. At the same time, they depict genuine emotional connection with each other despite the legal, emotional and moral prohibitions that still frame their lives. Their performances are brilliant. At one level, this film is about the horrendous impact on victims and the abrogation of responsibility that occurs in cases of child sexual abuse. At another, it pulls apart the stereotype of victim and abuser to shed light on how it can happen and its painful aftermath. Some audiences may be repulsed at the level of sympathy shown to the perpetrator and the implicit sharing of responsibility between a juvenile and an adult for what is entirely an adult crime. Others may be shaken by the idea that such crimes may have any moral ambiguity at all. In any case, this is brave and provocative cinema that cuts across the guilt versus innocence binary.

Uncomfortable film to watch just because of the subject line. A woman tries to find the man who abused her when she was 13 because she is still hung on him and loves him wonders why he left her. Good cast with Rooney Mara, Ben Mendelsohn and Riz Ahmed. I thought the directing was also nice in scenes the tension was nicely set up but overall the subject line was very comfortable.

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.

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.