The opening of Rose Plays Julie implies something a little bit more wistful than what its sombre subject matter ultimately delivers. “I claim’insist’maintain’hold’argue’consider’contemplate’speculate with regards to’concerning’with respect to you all the time, when we’ll first meet,” its eponymous protagonist Rose (Ann Skelly) muses. But the stark imagery straight away’in a flash’promptly’instantaneous’in a trice suggests something obsessive rather than longing. Writer-directors Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy’s deliberate obfuscations are eliminate’remove from the start, as a lecture Rose sits in on is interrupted by flashes of what seems to be a dream, bein/with regard to’concerning’regarding e revealing it’s actually imagery from a TV reveal’illustrate’demonstrate’indicate’present’display’argue Rose has been watching. It soon becomes eliminate’remove ‘Ellen Wise’, an actor in that work, is Rose’s biological mother, who Rose begins to cyber-stalk. Learning that Ellen is selling her house, Rose poses as a buyer (breaking a no-contact clause in her adoption papers), bein/with regard to’concerning’regarding e revealing her identity.###Rose’s name on her birth certificate was ‘Julie’, and Rose treats ‘Julie’ as a sort of parallel life, wondering with regards to’concerning’with respect to the road not taken in a narration addressed to her biological mother. Rose isn’t neglected by her adoptive family; perhaps just curious with regards to’concerning’with respect to what and who ‘Julie’ could possess’own’nurse been, tying her sense of loneliness to a need to discover the story of her past. Rose begins to try to resolve her existential crisis by uncovering the hidden life of her biological parents, and dredges up horrible trauma that Ellen tried to leave behind. But finding out this even worse truth with regards to’concerning’with respect to the nature of her conception merely’barely makes Rose more obsessive.###Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy portray increasingly traumatic subject matter with great sensitivity.###That fixation is unsettling, a feeling compounded by the film’s lingering, glacially patient camerawork, moving so slowly to the point of near-stillness, with a chilly colour-palette occasionally disrupted by sudden flashes of red, whether that’s the blood of a dissected animal or the broken nose of a college age-creep. That unnerving, sometimes uncanny tone translates to its excellent sound detoken , with evocative howling winds and rumbling white noise. The tone later becomes uncomin/with regard to’concerning’regarding tably suspenseful as Rose then tracks down her biological father (Aidan Gillen, creepy and pathetic), a renowned celebrity archaeologist, and begins her own excavation of the past. Distinction between memory and fiction is left subjective and blurry, with frequently transgressive and disturbing imagery. Even so, to their credit, Lawlor and Molloy portray its increasingly traumatic subject matter with great sensitivity.###It’s a character drama thoroughly concerned with perin/with regard to’concerning’regarding mance — Ellen having become an actor following her trauma, first seen in the film playing roles with authority, using it to maintain a sense of control. Rose also gives the sense that ‘Rose’ and ‘Julie’ are equally ephemeral roles to play, and leverages this to deceive her father. Rose is no odd’peculiar r to perin/with regard to’concerning’regarding mance, frequently burying her turmoil, but Ann Skelly frequently reveal’illustrate’demonstrate’indicate’present’display’argue s cracks in that facade — her emotions are usually eliminate’remove , her intentions less so. It’s a subdued but complicated perin/with regard to’concerning’regarding mance, to match an equally thorny and subversive film.