Since graduating from Scotland’s National Film School in 1995, Lynne Ramsay has had a precocious filmmaking career that mirrors the halcyon early days of Australia’s Jane Campion. Award-winning shorts led to edgy, original feature films: Ratcatcher and now Morvern Callar (opening this Friday at the Kendall Square), which recall Campion’s triumphs with Sweetie and Angel at My Table. She’s set to move into her Piano phase with her next project, an adaptation of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones.

Has any of this swollen Ramsay’s head? I don’t think so. The young woman I met with at last fall’s Toronto Film Festival was so darned nice, so totally ingenuous, a down-home gal from blue-collar Glasgow. " I’m not a film buff, " she said. " Growing up in Glasgow, you don’t see Jean-Luc Godard on the weekend. When I went to film school, I saw things I’d never heard of. Truffaut, Tarkovsky, and Terrence Malick are people I learned about and really like. The only Scottish director for whom I said ‘Wow!’ was Bill Douglas, though I know about Bill Forsyth’s [terrible] experience in Hollywood. The warning I got: if you have the final cut, then fine. Otherwise, I don’t see the point. " Not that doing independent movies in Scotland has been simple. " Making Ratcatcher was a struggle, really tough, and I had to fight [for respect] every step of the way. "

Morvern Callar began as a 1995 novel by Scotland’s Alan Warner, who made several attempts at a screenplay before Ramsay took over. Although the story is the same — Morvern is a Scottish party girl who, when her boyfriend commits suicide, puts her name on his unpublished novel and pretends to have written it — the telling is very different. " The film is a companion piece to the novel, " Ramsay said. " It’s a long novel, very existential, a monologue by the girl, almost as if she were being interviewed by a cop. She never analyzes her actions. She’s a pragmatist, a survivor. She just changes the name on the book and doesn’t even read it, not a word! I like that! She’s an anti-hero. "

How does Ramsay imagine the boyfriend, who lies dead on Christmas Day as the movie opens? " He’s an intellectual in a relationship with a non-academic, simpler, almost autistic girl. Warner killed him off on page one of his novel, and Morvern, the supermarket-worker girl, takes over. The book is very ‘death of the author,’ and as a filmmaker I related to it. And to Morvern. I still feel I’m a girl growing up in Glasgow. "

Ramsay also relates to her protagonist’s having no idea what’s in the book she’s claiming to have written. " I’m always being asked, ‘What’s in your next movie?’ I don’t have a fucking clue. "

The funniest moments in Morvern Callar come when the heroine is followed to Spain by a tony couple from a prestigious British publishing company who are enamored of " her " novel. Ramsay can empathize with this episode as well. For the role of Tom Boddington, the patrician book editor, she chose a London-based power broker from her own world of film dealing: Jim Wilson, deputy head of Film Four. " He’s got a sense of humor. I told him, ‘Do it like you’re at Cannes.’ I love the fact that Morvern is so naive and they want a part of it. Here’s someone hot! They hang on to her every word. "

About the sublime Samantha Morton, who plays Morvern, Ramsay said: " We met, we clicked, she has a similar approach to me. She doesn’t measure and analyze the action. She’s a chameleon. She has this ability to be very plain at times and then transcend that and be very beautiful. I really think she’s the best actress of this generation. She doesn’t bring the baggage of Samantha Morton. Sometimes she believes she’s an alien from another planet. "

Ramsay boldly complemented Morton with a total newcomer, Kathleen McDermott, as Lanna, Morvern’s supermarket-worker pal. A casting director found McDermott on a Glasgow street and persuaded her to audition. She’s also terrific, a freckle-faced Gwyneth-Paltrow-as-commoner. " Kathleen didn’t know who Samantha was — anyhow, she didn’t give a shit. I think that helped. She’s very confident. She’s a singer with a great voice, and she’s now going to be an actress. "

But what will happen to Morvern after she’s completed what Ramsay calls " an emotional journey, even if it’s a catatonic one? " After the movie? Ramsay deadpans, " Maybe she’ll write another book. "

Gerald Peary can be reached at gpeary@world.std.com.