MY BROTHER TOM

Like “The War Zone” (24th CIFF, 2000), Dom Rotheroe's edgy drama takes place in a placid-seeming English countryside, where the scenery masks a grim heritage of sexual abuse. Jessica is a beautiful Catholic schoolgirl from a `good' family, barely suppressing the pain of repeated molestations by one of her own teachers. Tom is an inarticulate, semi-feral teenager, a freakish outcast as far as the other boys are concerned. He spends days and nights lurking in surrounding woods and suburban trees like a baleful sprite. The dark wilderness of adolescence becomes a reality for these two violated young people, failed by institutions of church and hearth, who take to the forests for refuge. Jessica and Tom reach out hungrily, fervently to each other, probing each other's mental and physical scars and declaring themselves more brother and sister than boyfriend/girlfriend. But with psyches damaged beyond their years and the rash immaturity of youth, the patchwork shelter the pair build for themselves soon shows signs of falling apart. Shot on roving digital-video by famed cinematographer Robby M?ller, MY BROTHER TOM shivers with restless tension and foreboding.