The life of Una, a young beautiful girl, who falls for her neighbor and has an affair with him, has been changed completely, when he begins to stay away from her without any reason.
The film has a different though no less riveting intensity, thanks to Rooney Mara's emotionally naked performance in the title role, and unflinching support from Ben Mendelsohn.
Benedict Andrews is famous for his brilliant stage metaphors - in his German production of [the source play], Ray spilled water then desperately tried to mop it up - but his film is very, very literal, [showing] us enough to stop us imagining the worst.
There's no denying this is uncomfortable, claustrophobic viewing, as it should be. But for all the film's efforts to transport the story from stage to screen, there's still something inescapably stagey and static about Una.
Rooney Mara and Ben Mendelsohn wrestle with the slippery semantics of sexual abuse in this muscular film adaptation of David Harrower's acclaimed stage play Blackbird.
This minimalist, Surrey-shot piece has moments where you can sense how it might have looked and felt in the theatre -- but it never feels stagey or talky. That's entirely to do with the performances by Rooney Mara and Ben Mendelsohn.
However good the cast is, there's no shaking the distinct impression that all these brilliant actors could be better served in a more interesting film -- or, at least, one without the drastic pacing problem in Una.
It's an accomplished debut from Andrews. He's greatly assisted on the technical side by cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis's fine photography and by the intricate editing of Nick Fenton that glides between the disturbing past and the distressing present.
An agile, vicious piece of work that's anchored by extraordinary performances from Rooney Mara and Ben Mendelsohn, "Una" maintains its grip even when swinging a bit too hard for the fences.
