After a violent experience in North Africa, exhausted war photographer Lee (Catherine Keener) retreats to Sicily and drifts with no clear purpose. She pops pills. The hotel telephone rings, but she ignores it. She then finds herself drawn toward a pregnant Tunisian teenager (Hafsia Herzi). The girl is desperate for an abortion and an escape to France from Italy, and Lee decides to help. Often a valuable, scene-stealing side player in films, Keener is a talent of the highest order, and it is nice to see a film constructed around her directly. The camera is always focused on her here, and there is fascination in the way she, without vanity, inhabits this glum, fraught, and distant character. The film, however, is a bit of an unrewarding drag. It falls on the wrong side of the line separating tantalizing ambiguity from simple underdevelopment. In fact, it is often coy to the point of frustration, always withholding contextual information or teasing a burgeoning theme before shying away from it in favor of another gloomy tangent. At the end, one feels a bit sad, a bit confused, a bit bored, and unsure how to respond, though admiration for Keener's performance is easy and earned.

C+