Jeremy Irvine is the sympathetic focus, but it’s Noah Wyle who holds the movie together, as a former teacher who lost his job through a malicious student’s prank. Smart, self-possessed and capable, this fellow nonetheless carries himself with an awareness of some underlying guilt.

It’s a slow film, and almost painfully melodramatic in its obvious twists and turns. But the performances are finely tuned, and the story arc and situations — aside from a few pauses for a song — quietly gripping.

Though the film, based on a Ron Rash novel, doesn’t quite deliver on all its grim portents, debut director David Burris creates a neo-Faulknerian atmosphere of indelible sin in a story that rises above cliché. As Wyle’s character puts it, “The South was never one thing.”

This evenly paced drama holds interest with its uneasy character dynamics, interesting milieu and effective performances, though a story so frequently on the verge of violence ought to build more tension than Burris manages.

The film's saving grace is its fine performances.