The Winter Guest

(New Line)

Phyllida Law plays the mother of her real-life daughter Emma Thompson (as a recently widowed photographer) in this auspicious directorial debut by Alan Rickman. Based on a play by Sharman Macdonald, the movie is set in Scottish town so cold the sea has frozen. Rickman's camera follows the characters in their wanderings, and some of his best effects are visual. It's a stark, sometimes stagy, surprisingly funny movie that's both cozy and insidiously unsettling.