There are not many Hollywood film-makers who can successfully bring all three skills of writing, directing and acting to a big screen feature.

Asia Argento - best known for her turn opposite Vin Diesel in his muscles'n'mayhem caper xXx - has a go…and - it has to be said - it's not pretty.

The source material is cult author JT Leroy's brutal autobiography - the story of a child plucked out of happy foster home and handed back to his slatternly single mum.

You get the impression it's not going to be an easy ride for young Jeremiah when he is delivered to her sink estate home in what looks like a Pringle sweater while she's dolled up like a tarty Looby Loo.

Feeding him cold spaghetti hoops then a handful of pills, he realises he's on a journey of despair punctuated by nights in fleapit motels and in the back of a station wagon while mom ruts inside some redneck's shack.

Telescoping a life of sordid abuse and grim despair into the length of a normal feature means that some unpalatable episodes have to be left out to provide light and shade.

However, Argento shoehorns the whole lot in, offering no respite from an unending procession of depravity as Sarah sinks ever deeper into a pit of drug addiction.

There are some particularly strong scenes - where Jeremiah is conned into singing I am an anti-Christ from Anarchy in the UK to his God-fearing grandad.

And Bennett, particularly, is extremely affecting as the youngster with the innocence of a choirboy force into a warped relationship of inter-dependence with his doolally mom.

However, the other characters - notably the succession of thuggish surrogate dads (one who rapes him) - are paper thin and crudely drawn.

By the end you're thinking enough, already…but for Argento, alas, it never is.

Tim Evans