Booed off the screen at the Cannes Festival, but not actually all that bad, this is British director Terence Davies' first American film - the story of a boy's traumatic upbringing in the US Bible Belt between the ages of eight and 15. His father dominates and occasionally beats his fragile mother, but the light of his life is charismatic Aunt Mae (Gena Rowlands), a faded dance-hall singer who comes into her own in the early Forties when the boy's father goes off to war. But his mother's tenuous grip on reality slips away when his father is killed on active service. Aunt Mae goes off to Nashville on a gig and events move to a violent and tragic conclusion. There are three good performances here - from Jacob Tierney as the boy, Diana Scarwid as the mother and especially Rowlands as Aunt Mae. But Davies takes it all at much too slow a pace and his habit of focusing on fabric seriously impairs the story. Still, it does have a certain haunting quality and the colour photography, particularly at nighttime, is fine.

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