A very loose adaptation of a short story by Jean-Paul Sartre, The Childhood of a Leader is the austerely rigorous and auspicious directorial debut of actor Brady Corbet. For his first feature, Corbet clearly draws inspiration from the numerous art-house titans under which he has acted, including Olivier Assayas, Michael Haneke, and Lars von Trier. As the First World War draws to a despondent and draining close, an American diplomat (Liam Cunningham), his cosmopolitan wife (Bérénice Bejo), and their adolescent son (Tom Sweet) move into a large farmhouse in the French countryside. While the cold patriarch is distracted by his involvement with President Woodrow Wilson and the composition of peace treaties, the son's antisocial tendencies intensify; he alienates and is combative toward his mother, and the toxicity of their domestic sphere negatively impacts others, including a kindhearted tutor (Stacy Martin). Similar to Haneke's The White Ribbon, one of the most disturbing and fascinating films of the last quarter century, The Childhood of a Leader draws a line from provincial cruelty and dysfunction to the rise of fascism in Europe in the early 20th century. The case as presented here is not as nuanced or persuasive—a deliriously presented, yet also very literal epilogue is undermined by a mystifying casting decision which would be a spoiler to describe—but the film is captivating. A slowly burning drawing-room drama infused with the queasy dread of a horror film, it is well-acted by every principal (also including Robert Pattinson as a boozy, jaded reporter) and buoyed by a perfectly cacophonous blast furnace of a score composed by none other than pop star turned avant-garde iconoclast Scott Walker.

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