Adult Ray (a terrific performance by Ben Mendelsohn) has an inappropriate sexual relationship with 13-year-old girl Una (an affecting portrayal by Ruby Strokes). Ray winds up spending four years in prison for this. Fifteen years later a now grown-up Una (superbly played with heart-wrenching vulnerability by Rooney Mara) tracks Ray down at his new job where he's known as Peter to achieve some kind of closure after Ray abandoned her.

Director Benedict Andrews and writer David Harrower tackle the rough and uncomfortable subject matter head on, with a bold and confrontational approach that depicts in no uncertain terms the severe emotional and psychological damage wrought by adults on children that they take advantage of. Moreover, this film not only makes a strong and provocative point about the impossibility of running away from a dark past, but also generates a tremendous amount of nerve-rattling tension. In addition, the often brutally frank dialogue seriously smokes. Both Mendelsohn and especially Mara do sterling work in their difficult roles; they receive sturdy support from Riz Ahmed as concerned coworker Scott, Tobias Menzies as irate boss Mark, and Natasha Little as Ray's unsuspecting wife Yvonne. By no means an easy film to watch, but undeniably a hard movie to shake after you see it.

Una is uncomfortable and unnerving viewing, a film that will make your skin crawl on more than one occasion but thanks to some award worthy turns from its impressive lead performers, Benedict Andrews film is noteworthy as a character driven, dialogue heavy expose of some very heavy material.

Andrews film, which is based on David Harrower's esteemed play, keeps its stage play roots well and truly at the forefront as Rooney Mara's tormented Una takes a road trip to confront Ben Mendelsohn's factory foreman Peter, a man she knows from her childhood as Ray and a man with whom she had an illegal relationship with as a 13 year old teenage girl.

Largely taking place in Peter's workplace as he and Una discuss what happened, what could've been and what they feel, we get brief yet confronting flashbacks to Peter and Una's forbidden affiliation but mostly Andrews is focussing solely on Mara and Mendelsohn as the two competent performers work off each other too slowly tear away the layers to reveal their true motivations and inward thoughts.

Mara once again shows she is willing to be laid bare as an actress in another noteworthy turn while Mendelsohn, who has recently been cast more as a purely bad guy type role, gets one of his meatiest feature film roles yet as Peter.

His far from a likable or respectable person but Mendelsohn plays him to perfection, giving Peter just the right amount of humanity and against all the odds moments of compassion.

It's a role that could've fallen either way but the Aussie actor once more showcases why his regarded now as one of our all-time great exports. With Mara he shares a wonderful energy, while with the younger Una played by Ruby Stokes, Mendelsohn plays the role not predatory but more purely sad, a man consumed by feelings and urges that lead him to make his life's biggest mistake.

Una's greatest flaw as a film and ability too fully connect is strangely with the character of Una herself.

We feel her pain and understand the confusion and mental strain that has been bought down upon her but her reasoning behind confronting Peter and then her subsequent decisions from there are not that easy to understand. For a film that in many ways feels so realistic and raw, Una's consistently odd behaviour is hard to take, even when at times she is a heartbreakingly broken soul searching for closure on her past.

Final Say –

Not what you'd call an entertaining watch, thanks to some dark subject material and sombre to bleak tone, Una is an immaculately acted tale whose flawed characters don't always connect but thanks to Mara and Mendelsohn and Andrews carefully weighted hand behind-camera, this is a bleak drama that's a cut-above many similar productions.

3 ½ Ferris Wheel rides out of 5

Half a century after the well-known Lolita of Vladimir Nabokov subtly transformed into a cinematographic masterpiece by Stanley Kubrick, Una (2016) presents the ravages of a few-months romance between a man in his forties and a 13-years-old girl. This analysis is essentially revealed through the eyes of this teenager who has become a woman particularly disturbed and confused by this past as short as devastating.

Ben Mendelsohn and Rooney Mara play excellently, with an out-of-the-ordinary decency and an exemplary sobriety. In addition, the director Benedict Andrews successfully and coldly describes the havoc of an unusual relationship that challenges morality despite a 'consent' from the teen.