Rather silly, but curiously affecting at times, this is a rural parable about simple Bobby (Christian Bale) who, bereft of his dead mother, is threatened with the asylum by his tyrannical stepfather, The Fat (Daniel Benzali) if he doesn't sign over the deeds to his mother's store. Bobby, minus the pet mouse The Fat has cruelly dispatched, flees the family mansion and ends up in the Cornish countryside. Here he finds a kindred soul in the distinctly dotty Summers (John Hurt) who has killed his wife, likewise fled the coop and now roams the woods burying animals killed on the road or otherwise terminated by human agency. All is well until Bobby is recognised on a beach and Summers gets the strange idea they can deal with the Fat and bury the past. Although melodramatic, the plot's never boring, its cast are all convincing and the Cornish scenery mistily amazing.