A.D. Calvo’s The Missing Girl is the unique kind of mystery film that gradually reveals itself to have no real mystery at all. That may sound like a disappointment, but in the hands of A.D. Calvo it’s quite the opposite. And while there is, in fact, a missing girl in the film (there are actually two), Calvo cleverly uses the old, familiar hook of a detective story to lure people into a character-based drama about letting go of the past and moving forward. The emphasis on character is there from frame one, but as time goes on Calvo deliberately downplays and removes his narrative strands established at the beginning to make the film’s major discovery more of an internal one for its central character. It’s the kind of low-key, diverting indie that uses its great cast to avoid falling into the clichés of a late coming-of-age tale, and it’s all elevated by an incredible lead performance.

The person at the centre of The Missing Girl is actually Mort (Robert Longstreet), a middle-aged owner of a comic book store in New London, Connecticut. He’s recently hired Ellen (Alexia Rasmussen), an aspiring graphic novelist hoping to get her work published. Mort’s attracted to the younger Ellen, but he’s too nervous to make a move. It’s soon revealed that part of Mort’s attraction to Ellen has to do with a dark memory from his past; she looks similar to his high school crush who mysteriously vanished years ago, with only her clothes and a lot of blood found underneath a bridge in a seedy-looking part of town. The unsolved mystery still bothers Mort for reasons beyond his attraction to the girl; his late father was a detective on the case and never solved it.

And then Mort’s reignited fascination with the case only gets stronger once the missing girl’s high school boyfriend Skippy (Eric Ladin) strolls into town for a few days to clean up his parents’ place after putting his dad in a nursing home. Skippy, now a rich businessman living in New York, shows he hasn’t really changed since his days in high school, coming into Mort’s shop and humiliating him in front of Ellen for his childish interests. Not too long after Ellen suddenly stops showing up for work, and when Mort goes by her place the TV’s on but nobody’s home. Suspecting that Ellen has fallen victim to a similar fate as Skippy’s former girlfriend, Mort starts investigating to find out what happened to her.

Calvo swiftly sets the pieces of his story in place, only to casually ignore the puzzle he’s laid out. Rather than add suspense by withholding the whereabouts of Ellen, Calvo leaves everything out in the open regarding her fate. It immediately deflates the sense of mystery, and by doing so allows Calvo to delve further into Mort’s life, whether it’s staying in contact with his mother (Shirley Knight), relying on his brother Stan (Thomas Jay Ryan) to help him out with his store’s finances, or getting help from his friend and local cop Fran (Sonja Sohn). Anyone familiar with these names should be aware by now that Calvo has assembled a terrific group of character actors for his film, and everyone brings their own unique presence to their roles. Even Kevin Corrigan—who’s been having a great year with roles in films like Results and Wild Canaries—shows up at one point, in what amounts to a glorified cameo.

But this is primarily a showcase for Robert Longstreet, and to say his performance makes The Missing Girl is an understatement. Longstreet, who’s been playing supporting roles over the years in films like Take Shelter, This is Martin Bonner and more recently in Josephine Decker’s Thou Wast Mild and Lovely, finally gets a chance to show off his incredible talent in a lead role. Longstreet played a terrifying, intimidating force in Decker’s film, and here, he goes in the opposite direction, portraying Mort as a meek, shy man whose obsession with comics and toys feels like a result of his inability to get over his father’s death. But Longstreet also taps into his more intense side, showing Mort as short-tempered with an ability to fly into a rage if he hears the wrong thing. It’s seriously impressive how much Longstreet transforms Mort from the standard image of a man in arrested development to a fascinating and complex person.

Behind the camera, Calvo and cinematographer Ava Berkofsky give the film a rare quality seen in recent indies that takes advantage of the film’s New London setting (or maybe it’s just refreshing to see something not in Brooklyn or Los Angeles). Michael Taylor’s editing is where The Missing Girl shows off some originality by using split screens and match cuts to make the screen reflect comic book panels, but its implementation is hit and miss (the first time it’s used might be the best part since the effect is somewhat disorienting). Similarly, Calvo’s brief glimpses into Mort’s brain through fantasy sequences also don’t land too well, adding a crudeness to the film that doesn’t match up well with everything else. But Calvo’s film is primarily a character study, and on that end it succeeds thanks to Longstreet. It’s a mystery movie with no real resolution, and in this case, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Sounds of aggressive screaming and laughter. A father and daughter chase each other. The daughter holds a decapitated chicken, chasing her father down and smearing its blood on his shirt. They roll around on the ground before the daughter goes back into their farmhouse. The handheld camera moves around the entire time, eventually drifting out of focus as it views the surrounding area. Only the scene doesn’t end at this point, as one might expect. The daughter begins narrating about her hypothetical lover, and the camera stares down a growling dog nearby. It’s a scene that’s bold, unique, vibrant, awkward and unsettling all at once, and a good introduction of what’s to come in Thou Wast Mild and Lovely.

The farmer in the opening is Jeremiah (Robert Longstreet), and his daughter Sarah (Sophie Traub). The two have a bizarre relationship, one with heavy implications of something incestuous, although director/co-writer Josephine Decker never clears up that ambiguity. The lack of answers extends to the third major character in this story; Akin (Joe Swanberg), a new worker on the farm hired for the summer. He removes his wedding ring, hiding the existence of his wife and child from Jeremiah and Sarah, and the reason for his being there might have to do with a past tragedy. Jeremiah, acting as an intimidating, masculine force in opposition to Akin’s meek, quiet composure (something Jeremiah repeatedly brings up as an insult), immediately notices the tan line on Akin’s ring finger. He knows Akin and Sarah are attracted to each other, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

That’s because darkness lingers just under the surface of Thou Wast Mild and Lovely. When all three characters sit down for dinner one night, Jeremiah tells a story about how people have two wolves constantly fighting inside them: one representing good, and one representing evil. Before he can say which wolf ends up winning he gets cut off, the story never finishing. In Decker’s film, malevolence tends to have the upper hand. Decker’s portrayal of her characters’ dark desires is where her talents shine considerably, showcasing a truly distinct voice in modern indie filmmaking. Ashley Connor’s excellent cinematography has the camera roving from one place to another, frequently switching perspectives as well as stylistic techniques (the film’s highlight: a series of flashbacks through the POV of a cow). Editing also plays a major role in creating the unique, dreadful mood. Decker, along with co-editors David Barker and Steven Schardt, edit the film in a way that feels impulsive, tied more to emotions than logic. The style will inevitably earn comparisons to Terrence Malick, except Decker’s lyricism has a fascinating perverseness to it.

While Decker’s skills at showing intangible urges and emotions show great talent, the same can’t be said once tensions rise to the surface. The arrival of Akin’s wife, Drew (Kristin Slaysman), leads to a climax turning the film into something akin to a gothic horror. The shift is a bit of a stumble for the film, with certain characters behaving in ways feeling too drastic and bizarre compared to everything beforehand. It’s a step taken a bit too far in one direction, but that appears to be Decker’s MO. Thou Wast Mild and Lovely isn’t afraid to go further, delving into ideas and choices that can easily repel just as much as it attracts. Some moments are absurd and laughable, while others generate a sublime beauty. It’s a risky mode of filmmaking, but it’s one that delivers truly exciting results.

This slow, but intriguing film first made its debut at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The increase in indie sci-fi films (read about a few of our favorites) has provoked a sub genre devoted to the subtlety and mystery utilized in sci-fi films, with understated (and under budget) visuals. The Signal uses this same formula, however stretched too thin.

Directed by William Eubanks, whose only other directing credit is for 2011’s Love, the film is about three MIT students road tripping to California. Nic (Brenton Thwaites), who uses forearm crutches to walk and whose consistent dreams of running tell us this wasn’t always the case, is taking his girlfriend Haley (Olivia Cooke) to study in California for a semester. With them is his friend Jonah (Beau Knapp) and as they trek the two are constantly plugged in to their computers, trying to track the hacker, Nomad, who has been harassing them in the cyber world and who brought down servers at MIT, placing the blame on them. When they discover that Nomad’s GPS coordinates are along their route in Nevada, they can’t help but decide to take a detour and face him in person. The coordinates lead them to a seemingly abandoned house in the middle of the desert where things escalate and Nic ends up blacked out. When he wakens in a government institution in a wheelchair and surrounded by workers in space suits, he has to try to piece together what happened and why Haley lies comatose in a nearby room and Jonah is nowhere to be seen, but his voice seems to be coming through the air vent in Nic’s room.

Laurence Fishburne does his best, well, Laurence Fishburne as one of the scientists on Nic’s case, Dr. Wallace Damon. Few actors have perfected slow-speaking poker-faced delivery as well as he has and at many points it wouldn’t have been surprising if he’d pulled out a red pill and a blue pill and offered them to Nic. Dr. Damon asks tortuously enigmatic questions of Nic, answers almost none of his questions, and then just lays it on the table that it appears that Nic and his friends were abducted by aliens and that he and the others have to wear these outdated looking space suits because they fear contamination to whatever Nic and his friends were exposed to.

After getting no answers from the scientists, a few strange occurrences at the compound, and urgent whisperings from Jonah through the air vent that weird things are happening to him, Nic decides to break out with the sleeping Haley. From then on, as the film progresses into one big chase scene, it’s twist after twist revealing the magnitude of their situation as bigger than Nic thought and his sanity and his own body are in jeopardy.

The mysteries pile up throughout the film to the point that it seems there will either be a really surprising and satisfying payoff where all our minds are blown or… not. Unfortunately, The Signal decides that answering the biggest mystery should be enough to satisfy, but the film brings up so many other interesting questions that when it fails to acknowledge them at all the disappointment overshadows the general enjoyment the film had been building up.

It’s more than clear that The Signal‘s writer/director, William Eubank, is first and foremost a cinematographer. The film is visually saturated, relying on epic HFR slow-mo at key points to detract from the obvious plot holes. It’s a really good-looking film, with warm sunsets for romantic flashbacks between Nic and Haley, and blinding bright desert scenes depicting the hopelessness of their current situation. But no amount of pretty can make up for all those unanswered questions and strange editing choices. A scene with a cow featuring a strangely underused Sarah Clarke is never made mention of again. An amazing cameo by Lin Shaye as an enthusiastic gibberish spouting local who gives Nic and Haley a ride, gets hardly any further explanation.

Eubank couldn’t quite see the forest for the trees and has made a film with beautiful pieces that don’t form much of a picture. Some sci-fi enthusiasts will enjoy the open-ended nature of the film and its demand for personal interpretation, but this narrative-driven critic can’t help but see how a little more plot and a few less spectacles could have taken this fun film that much further.