Unfortunately, its superb performances and assured camerawork are overwhelmed by dubious psychology and a clichéd climax.

A brilliantly conceived thriller that keeps us guessing right up to the very end, Red Road intrigues but frustrates by its slow development and often incomprehensible Scottish dialogue

A strange sort of map of the city [is] spread across these fragmented cubes of visual information. And there's also the metaphorical map of the characters' lives, where they're coming from and where they're going.

I like that you're never sure where this road is going to lead.

Like the Peeping Tom-paranoia of similar recent films Disturbia and Civic Duty, this finely crafted debut feature by Scottish writer/director Andrea Arnold packs a wallop.

Red Road is an atmospheric little thriller made up of equal parts paranoia, loneliness and anxiety.

The glacially paced film is tersely episodic, and scenes are thrown onto the screen like jagged bits of raw meat that have been torn from a bone.

It’s a jarring sensation, for a thriller not to be about the chase, or the mysterious force of evil lurking in the shadows, but about an intangible gulf dividing two people occupying the same room.

Though it's paced as a thriller, the film ultimately emerges as a haunting exploration of how grief can weigh on us, and the depths to which it can drive us.

An impressive debut that is orchestrated with a deep, underlying tension that never lets us guess what will come.