The 21-year-old Morvern Callar is lost in a world of her own. She's numbed by a dull job sorting the fruit and veg in a supermarket in a dreary west-of-Scotland town.

A quiet one, she wakes up on Christmas morning to find her aspiring writer boyfriend dead on the kitchen floor, as flickering tree lights cast an eerie haze.

Unsure what to do, she carries on with life, not telling anyone he's dead. Morvern parties with best mate Lanna, takes ecstasy and says he walked out.

Dazed and confused, she goes to work and wanders the town with her Walkman jammed to her ears playing a music mix he left her.

The girl's clearly in shock, but is calm, almost simple in her actions. Staggering home from a party in her laddered tights, her drug-addled brain starts to clear.

A note on her dead boyfriend's computer asks Morvern to send his first novel to a publisher. Seeing her way out, she puts her name to the book instead.

Stripping his bank account, Morvern escapes with happy-go-lucky Lanna to the Costa Del Delirium, where cracks in their friendship emerge.

The film drifts brilliantly, visually and sometimes silently, just like Morvern, through a world uncoloured by sentiment or much structured plotting.

Morton is compelling as the still, yet expressive woman, who often seems isolated and lost, observing her own existence from outside herself.

Plucked from a Glasgow street, newcomer Kathleen McDermott, as her friend, is a fantastic, lively contrast - looking for a good time and nothing more.

Director Lynne Ramsay superbly transports us inside the head of Morvern Callar and dumps us, urging us to think about what's going on in there. You may not be comfortable with her actions but you know something of her state of mind.

The fantastically shot, hedonistic club scenes are exhilarating. This is emotional, rhythmic film-making that doesn't worry about telling a story straight.

Aidan Conway